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Characters and Events 
 
 of 
 
 Roman History 
 
 From Caesar to Nero 
 
 XLbc %oxceU Xectures ot 1908 
 
 By 
 
 Guglielmo Ferrero, Litt. D, 
 
 Author of 
 
 ** The Greatness and Decline of Rome," etc. 
 
 Translated by 
 
 Frances Lance Ferrero 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York and London 
 
 XLbc Unicfterbocftec ipress 
 
 1909 
 

 Copyright, 1909 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 'Sbe ftnteftetbocftet ^vcse, View ]|2ocIt 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Codies RBCcivo.cl 
 
THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF ROME 
 
 BY GUGLIELMO FERRERO 
 
 Authorized Translation 
 
 5 vols. 8vo. Each $2.50 net 
 
 Vol. I. — The Empire Builders 
 
 Vol. II. — Julius Csesar 
 
 Vol. III. — The Fall of an Aristocracy 
 
 Vol. IV. — Rome and Egypt 
 
 Vol. V. — The Republic of Augustus 
 
 CHARACTERS AND EVENTS OF ROMAN 
 HISTORY 
 
 From Csesar to Nero (60 B.C.-70 A.D.) 
 
 Authorized Translation by Frances Lance Ferrero 
 
 8vo. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN the spring of 1906, the College de France in- 
 * vited me to deliver, during November of that 
 year, a course of lectures on Roman history. 
 I accepted, giving a r6sum6, in eight lectures, 
 of the history of the government of Augustus 
 from the end of the civil wars to his death ; that 
 is, a resume of the matter contained in the fourth 
 and fifth volumes of the English edition of my 
 work. The Greatness and Decline of Rome. 
 
 Following these lectures came a request from 
 M. Emilio Mitre, Editor of the chief newspaper 
 of the Argentine Republic, the Nacion, and one 
 from the Academia Brazileira de Lettras of Rio 
 de Janeiro, to deliver a course of lectures in the 
 Argentine and Brazilian capitals. I gave to the 
 South American course a more general character 
 than that delivered in Paris, introducing argu- 
 ments which would interest a public having a less 
 specialized knowledge of history than the public 
 I had addressed in Paris. 
 
iv Preface 
 
 When President Roosevelt did me the honour 
 to invite me to visit the United States and Prof. 
 Abbott Lawrence Lowell asked me to deliver a 
 course at the Lowell Institute in Boston, I se- 
 lected material from the two previous courses 
 of lectures, moulding it into the group that was 
 given in Boston in November-December, 1908. 
 These lectures were later read at Columbia Uni- 
 versity in New York, and at the University of 
 Chicago in Chicago. Certain of them were de- 
 livered elsewhere — before the American Philo- 
 sophical Society and at the University of Penn- 
 sylvania in Philadelphia, at Harvard University 
 in Cambridge, and at Cornell University in 
 Ithaca. 
 
 Such is the record of the book now presented 
 to the public at large. It is a work necessarily 
 made up of detached studies, which, however, 
 are bound together by a central, unifying thought ; 
 so that the reading of them may prove useful 
 and pleasant even to those who have already 
 read my Greatness and Decline of Rome. 
 
 The first lecture, "The Theory of Corruption 
 in Roman History," sums up the fimdamental 
 idea of my conception of the history of Rome. 
 The essential phenomenon upon which all the 
 political, social, and moral crises of Rome depend 
 
Preface v 
 
 is the transformation of customs produced by 
 the augmentation of wealth, of expenditure, and 
 of needs, — a phenomenon, therefore, of psycho- 
 logical order, and one common in contemporary 
 life. This lecture should show that my work 
 does not belong among those written after the / 
 method of economic materialism, for I hold that i 
 the fundamental force in history is psychologic 
 and not economic. 
 
 The three following lectures, "The History 
 and Legend of Antony and Cleopatra," "The 
 Development of Gaul," and "Nero," seem to 
 concern themselves with very different subjects. 
 On the contrary, they present three different 
 aspects of the one, identical problem — the strug- 
 gle between the Occident and the Orient — a 
 problem that Rome succeeded in solving as no 
 European civilisation has since been able to do, 
 making the countries of the Mediterranean Basin y^ 
 share a common life, in peace. How Rome suc- 
 ceeded in accomplishing this union of Orient 
 and Occident is one of the points of greatest 
 interest in its history. The first of these 
 three lectures, "Antony and Cleopatra," shows 
 how Rome repulsed the last offensive move- 
 ment of the Orient against the Occident; the 
 second, "The Development of Gaul," shows 
 
VI Preface 
 
 the establishing of equilibrium between the two 
 parts of the Empire; the third, "Nero," shows 
 how the Orient, beaten upon fields of battle and 
 in diplomatic action, took its revenge in the do- 
 main of Roman ideas, morals, and social life. 
 
 The fifth lecture, "Julia and Tiberius," illus- 
 trates, by one of the most tragic episodes of 
 Roman history, the terrible struggle between 
 Roman ideals and habits and those of the Graeco- 
 Asiatic civilisation. The sixth lecture, "The 
 Development of the Empire," summarises in 
 a few pages views to be developed in detail in 
 that part of my work yet to be written. 
 
 I have said that not all history can be explained 
 by economic forces and factors, but this does not 
 prevent me from regarding economic phenomena 
 as also of high importance. The seventh lecture, 
 "Wine in Roman History," is an essay after the 
 plan in accordance with which, it seems to me, 
 economic phenomena should be treated. 
 
 The last lecture deals with a subject that per- 
 haps does not, properly speaking, belong to 
 Roman history, but upon which an historian of 
 Rome ought to touch sooner or later; I mean 
 the r61e which Rome can still play in the education 
 of the upper classes. It is a subject important 
 not only to the historian of Rome, but to all 
 
Preface vii 
 
 those who are interested in the future of cul- 
 ture and civilisation. The more specialisa- 
 tion in technical labour increases, the greater 
 becomes the necessity of giving the superior 
 classes a general education, which can prepare 
 specialists to understand each other and to act 
 together in all matters of common interest. 
 To imagine a society composed exclusively of 
 doctors, engineers, chemists, merchants, manu- 
 facturers, is impossible. Every one must also 
 be a citizen and a man in sympathy with the 
 common conscience. I have, therefore, endeav- 
 oured to show in this eighth lecture what ser- 
 vices Rome and its great intellectual tradition 
 can render to modem civilisation in the field of 
 education. 
 
 These lectures naturally cannot do more than 
 make known ideas in general form ; it would be 
 too much to expect in them the precision of 
 detail, the regard for method, and the use of 
 frequent notes, citations, and references to 
 authorities or documents, that belong to my 
 larger work on Rome; but they are published 
 partly because I consider it useful to popularise 
 Roman history, and partly because some of the 
 pleasantest of memories attach to them. Their 
 origin, the course on Augustus given at the College 
 
viii Preface 
 
 de France, which proved one of the happiest occa- 
 sions of my life, and their development, leading 
 to my travels in the two Americas, have given 
 me experiences of the greatest interest and 
 pleasure. 
 
 I am glad of the opportunity here to thank all 
 those who have contributed to make the sojourn 
 of my wife and myself in the United States de- 
 lightful. I must thank all my friends at once- 
 for to name each one separately, I should need, 
 as a Latin poet says, "a hundred mouths and a 
 hundred tongues. " 
 
 GUGLIELMO FeRRERO. 
 
 Turin, February 22, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome, and its 
 Counterpart in Modern History 
 
 The History and Legend of Antony and 
 Cleopatra . 
 
 The Development of Gaul 
 
 Nero .... 
 
 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 Wine in Roman History 
 
 37 
 69 
 
 lOI 
 
 143 
 179 
 
 Social Development of the Roman Empire 207 
 Roman History in Modern Education . 239 
 Index ....... 265 
 
^'Corruption" in Ancient 
 Rome 
 
 And Its Counterpart in Modern 
 History 
 
'X'WO years ago in Paris, while giving a course 
 •■' of lectures on Augustus at the College de 
 France, I happened to say to an illustrious his- 
 torian, a member of the French Academy, who 
 was complimenting me : " But I have not re-made 
 Roman history, as many admirers think. On 
 the contrary, it might be said, in a certain sense, 
 that I have only returned to the old way. I have 
 retaken the point of view of Livy; like Livy, 
 gathering the events of the story of Rome around 
 that phenomenon which the ancients called 
 the 'corruption' of customs — & novelty twenty 
 centuries old!" 
 
 Spoken with a smile and in jest, these words 
 nevertheless were more serious than the tone in 
 which they were uttered. All those who know 
 Latin history and literature, even superficially, 
 remember with what insistence and with how 
 many diverse modulations of tone are reiterated 
 the laments on the corruption of customs, on 
 the luxury, the ambition, the avarice, that invaded 
 Rome after the Second Punic War. Sallust, 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 4 " Corruption " in Ancient Rome 
 
 Cicero, Livy, Horace, Virgil, are full of afHiction 
 because Rome is destined to dissipate itself in 
 an incurable corruption ; whence we see, then in 
 Rome, as to-day in France, wealth, power, culture, 
 glory, draw in their train — grim but inseparable 
 comrade ! — a pessimism that times poorer, cruder, 
 more troubled, had not known. In the very 
 moment in which the empire was ordering itself, 
 civil wars ended; in that solemn Pax Romana 
 which was to have endured so many ages, in the 
 very moment in which the heart should have 
 opened itself to hope and to joy, Horace describes, 
 in three fine, terrible verses, four successive genera- 
 tions, each corrupting Rome, which grew ever the 
 worse, ever the more perverse and evil-disposed: 
 
 ^tas parentum, peior avis, tulit 
 Nos requiores, mox laturos 
 Progeniem vitiosiorem. 
 
 "Our fathers were worse than our grandsires; 
 we have deteriorated from our fathers; our sons 
 will cause us to be lamented." This is the dark 
 philosophy that a sovereign spirit like Horace 
 derived from the incredible triumph of Rome 
 in the world. At his side, Livy, the great writer 
 who was to teach all future generations the story 
 of the city, puts the same hopeless philosophy 
 at the base of his wonderful work; 
 
** Corruption " in Ancient Rome 5 
 
 Rome was originally, when it was poor and small, 
 a unique example of austere virtue; then it corrupted, 
 it spoiled, it rotted itself by all the vices; so, little 
 by little, we have been brought into the present 
 condition in which we are able neither to tolerate 
 the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we 
 need to cure them. 
 
 The same dark thought, expressed in a thousand 
 forms, is found in almost every one of the Latin 
 writers. 
 
 This theory has misled and impeded my pre- 
 decessors in different ways: some, considering 
 that the writers bewail the unavoidable disso- 
 lution of Roman society at the very time when 
 Rome was most powerful, most cultured, richest, 
 have judged conventional, rhetorical, literary, 
 these invectives against corruption, these praises 
 of ancient simplicity, and therefore have held 
 them of no value in the history of Rome. 
 Such critics have not reflected that this conception 
 is found, not only in the literature, but also in 
 the politics and the legislation; that Roman 
 history is full, not only of invectives in prose and 
 verse, but of laws and administrative provisions 
 against luxuria, ambitio, avaritia — a sign that 
 these laments were not merely a foolishness of 
 wi iters, or, as we say to-day, stuff for newspaper 
 articles. Other critics, instead, taking account 
 
6 ** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 of these laws and administrative provisions, have 
 accepted the ancient theory of Roman corruption 
 without reckoning that they were describing 
 as undone by an irreparable dissolution, a nation 
 that not only had conquered, but was to govern 
 for ages, an immense empire. In this conception 
 of corruption there is a contradiction that conceals 
 a great universal problem. 
 
 Stimulated by this contradiction, and by the 
 desire of solving it, to study more attentively 
 the facts cited by the ancients as examples 
 of corruption, I have looked about to see if in the 
 contemporary world I could not find some things 
 that resembled it, and so make myself understand 
 it. The prospect seemed difficult, because modern 
 men are persuaded that they are models of all the 
 virtues. Who could think to find in them even 
 traces of the famous Roman corruption? In 
 the modern world to-day are the abominable 
 orgies carried on for which the Rome of the Caesars 
 was notorious? Are there to-day Neros and 
 Elagabaluses ? He who studies the ancient sources , 
 however, with but a little of the critical spirit, is 
 easily convinced that we have made for ourselves 
 out of the much-famed corruption and Roman 
 luxury a notion highly romantic and exaggerated. 
 We need not delude ourselves : Rome, even in the 
 
** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 7 
 
 times of its greatest splendour, was poor in com- 
 parison with the modern world ; even in the second 
 century after Christ, when it stood as metropolis 
 at the head of an immense empire, Rome was 
 smaller, less wealthy, less imposing, than a great 
 metropolis of Europe or of America. Some sump- 
 tuous public edifices, beautiful private houses' — 'that 
 is all the splendour of the metropolis of the empire. 
 He who goes to the Palatine may to-day refigure 
 for himself, from the so-called House of Livia, 
 the house of a rich Roman family of the time of 
 Augustus, and convince himself that a well-to-do 
 middle-class family would hardly occupy such a 
 house to-day. 
 
 Moreover, the palaces of the Caesars on the 
 Palatine are a grandiose ruin that stirs the artist 
 and makes the philosopher think; but if one sets 
 himself to measure them, to conjecture from 
 the remains the proportions of the entire edifices, 
 he does not conjure up buildings that rival 
 large modern constructions. The palace of Ti- 
 berius, for example, rose above a street only two 
 metres wide- — ^less than seven feet, — an alley like 
 those where to-day in Italian cities live only the 
 most miserable inhabitants. We have pictured 
 to ourselves the imperial banquets of ancient 
 Rome as functions of unheard of splendour- if 
 
8 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 Nero or Elagabalus could come to life and see the 
 dining-room of a great hotel in Paris or New 
 York — ^resplendent with light, with crystal, with 
 silver, — ^he would admire it as far more beautiful 
 than the halls in which he gave his imperial feasts. 
 Think how poor were the ancients in artificial 
 light! They had few wines; they knew neither 
 tea nor coffee nor cocoa ; neither tobacco, nor the 
 innumerable liqueurs of which we make use; in 
 face of our habits, they were always Spartan, 
 even when they wasted, because they lacked the 
 means to squander. 
 
 The ancient writers often lament the universal 
 tendency to physical self-indulgence, but among 
 the facts they cite to prove this dismal vice, 
 many would seem to us innocent enough. It was 
 judged by them a scandalous proof of gluttony 
 and as insensate luxury, that at a certain period 
 there should be fetched from as far as the Pontus, 
 certain sausages and certain salted fish that 
 were, it appears, very good ; and that there should 
 be introduced into Italy from Greece the delicate 
 art of fattening fowls. Even to drink Greek 
 wines seemed for a long time at Rome the caprice 
 of an almost crazy luxury. As late as i8 B.C., 
 Augustus made a sumptuary law that forbade 
 spending for banquets on work-days more than 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 9 
 
 two hundred sesterces (ten dollars) ; allowed three 
 hundred sesterces (fifteen dollars) for the days of 
 the Kalends, the Ides, and the Nones; and one 
 thousand sesterces (fifty dollars) for nuptial 
 banquets. It is clear, then, that the lords of the 
 world banqueted in state at an expense that to 
 us would seem modest indeed. And the women 
 of ancient times, accused so sharply by the men 
 of ruining them by their foolish extravagances, 
 would cut a poor figure for elegant ostentation 
 in comparison with modern dames of fashion. 
 For example, silk, even in the most prosperous 
 times, was considered a stuff, as we should say, 
 for millionaires; only a few very rich women 
 wore it ; and, moreover, moralists detested it, be- 
 cause it revealed too clearly the form of the body. 
 LoUia Paulina passed into history because she 
 possessed jewels worth several million francs : there 
 are to-day too many Lollia Paulinas for any one 
 of them to hope to buy immortality at so cheap 
 a rate. 
 
 I should reach the same conclusions if I could 
 show you what the Roman writers really meant 
 by corruption in their accounts of the relations 
 between the sexes. It is not possible here to make 
 critical analyses of texts and facts concerning this 
 material, for reasons that you readily divine; 
 
lo "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 but it would be easy to prove that also in this 
 respect posterity has seen the evil much larger 
 than it was. 
 
 Why, then, did the ancient writers bewail lux- 
 ury, inclination to pleasure, prodigality^ — things all 
 comprised in the notorious "corruption" — in so 
 much the livelier fashion than do moderns, although 
 they lived in a world which, being poorer and 
 more simple, could amuse itself, make display, and 
 indulge in dissipation so much less than we do? 
 This is one of the chief questions of Roman history, 
 and I flatter myself not to have entirely wasted 
 work in writing my book ^ ; above all, because I 
 hope to have contributed a little, if not actually 
 to solve this question, at least to illuminate it ; 
 because in so doing I believe I have found a kind 
 of key that opens at the same time many mysteries 
 in Roman history and in contemporary life. 
 The ancient writers and moralists wrote so much 
 of Roman corruption, because — ^nearer in this, as 
 in so many other things, to the vivid actuality — 
 they understood that wars, revolutions, the great 
 spectacular events that are accomplished in sight 
 of the world, do not form all the life of peoples; 
 that these occurrences, on the contrary, are but the 
 
 » The Greatness and Decline of Rome, s vols. New York 
 and London. 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome n 
 
 ultimate, exterior explanation, the external irradi- 
 ation, or the final explosion of an internal force 
 that is acting constantly in the family, in private 
 habit, in the moral and intellectual disposition 
 of the individual. They understood that all the 
 changes, internal and external, in a nation, 
 are bound together and in part depend on one very 
 common fact, which is everlasting and universal, 
 and which everybody may observe if he will but 
 look about him — on the increase of wants, the 
 enlargement of ideas, the shifting of habits, the 
 advance of luxury, the increase of expense that 
 is caused by every generation. 
 
 Look around you to-day: in every family you 
 may easily observe the same phenomenon. A man 
 has been born in a certain social condition and 
 has succeeded during his youth and vigour in add- 
 ing to his original fortune. Little by little as 
 he was growing rich, his needs and his luxuries 
 increased. When a certain point was reached, he 
 stopped. The men are few who can indefinitely 
 augment their particular wants, or keep changing 
 their habits throughout their lives, even after 
 the disappearance of vigour and virile elasticity. 
 The increase of wants and of luxury, the change 
 of habits, continues, instead, in the new genera- 
 tion, in the children, who began to live in the 
 
12 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 ease which their fathers won after long effort 
 and fatigue, and in maturer age; who, in short, 
 started where the previous generation left off, 
 and therefore wish to gain yet new enjoyments, 
 different from and greater than those that they ob- 
 tained without trouble through the efforts of the 
 preceding generation. It is this little common 
 drama, which we see re-enacted in every family 
 and in which every one of us has been and will 
 be an actor — to-day as a young radical who inno- 
 vates customs, to-morrow as an old conservative, 
 out-of-date and malcontent in the eyes of the 
 young ; a drama, petty and common, which no one 
 longer regards, so frequent is it and so frivolous it 
 seems, but which, instead, is one of the greatest 
 motive forces in human history — in greater or less 
 degree, under different forms, active in all times 
 and operating everywhere. On account of it no 
 generation can live quietly on the wealth gathered, 
 with the ideas discovered by antecedent genera- 
 tions, but is constrained to create new ideas, to 
 make new and greater wealth by all the means at 
 its disposal — by war and conquest, by agriculture 
 and industry, by religion and science. On account 
 of it, families, classes, nations, that do not succeed 
 in adding to their possessions, are destined to be 
 impoverished, because, wants increasing, it is neces- 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 13 
 
 sary, in order to satisfy them, to consume the 
 accumulated capital, to make debts, and, little by 
 little, to go to ruin. Because of this ambition, 
 ever reborn, classes renew themselves in every 
 nation. Opulent families after a few generations 
 are gradually impoverished; they decay and dis- 
 appear, and from the multitudinous poor arise 
 new families, creating the new dite which con- 
 tinues under differing forms the doings and tradi- 
 tions of the old. Because of this unrest, the 
 earth is always stirred up by a fervour for deeds of 
 adventure — attempts that take shape according 
 to the age : now peoples make war on each other, 
 now they rend themselves in revolutions, now 
 they seek new lands, explore, conquer, exploit | 
 again they perfect arts and industries, enlarge 
 commerce, cultivate the earth with greater assi- 
 duity ; and yet again, in the ages more laborious, 
 like ours, they do all these things at the same 
 time — ^an activity immense and continuous. But 
 its motive force is always the need of the new 
 generations, that, starting from the point at 
 which their predecessors had arrived, desire to 
 advance yet farther — to enjoy, to know, to 
 possess yet more. 
 
 The ancient writers understood this thoroughly : 
 what they called "corruption" was but the change 
 
14 ** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 in customs and wants, proceeding from generation 
 to generation, and in its essence the same as 
 that which takes place about us to-day. The 
 avaritia of which they complained so much, was 
 the greed and impatience to make money that 
 we see to-day setting all classes beside them- 
 selves, from noble to day-labourer; the ambitio 
 that appeared to the ancients to animate so 
 frantically even the classes that ought to have 
 been most immune, was what we call get- 
 ting there — the craze to rise at any cost to a 
 condition higher than that in which one was born, 
 which so many writers, moralists, statesmen, judge, 
 rightly or wrongly, to be one of the most dangerous 
 maladies of the modern world. Luxuria was the 
 desire to augment personal conveniences, luxuries, 
 pleasures — the same passion that stirs Europe 
 and America to-day from top to bottom, in city and 
 country. Without doubt, wealth grew in ancient 
 Rome and grows to-day ; men were bent on making 
 money in the last two centuries of the Republic, 
 and to-day they rush headlong into the delirious 
 struggle for gold; for reasons and motives, 
 however, and with arms and accoutrements, far 
 diverse. 
 
 As I have already said, ancient civilisation was 
 narrower, poorer, and more ignorant; it did not 
 
''Corruption" in Ancient Rome 15 
 
 hold under its victorious foot the whole earth; 
 it did not possess the formidable instruments with 
 which we exploit the forces and the resources 
 of nature: but the treasures of precious metals 
 transported to Italy from conquered and sub- 
 jugated countries ; the lands, the mines, the forests, 
 belonging to such countries, confiscated by Rome 
 and given or rented to Italians ; the tributes im- 
 posed on the vanquished, and the collection of 
 them; the abundance of slaves, — ^all these then 
 offered to the Romans and to the Italians so many 
 occasions to grow rich quickly ; just as the gigantic 
 economic progress of the modern world offers 
 similar opportunities to-day to all the peoples 
 that, by geographical position, historical tradition, 
 or vigorous culture and innate energy, know how 
 to excel in industry, in agriculture, and in trade. 
 Especially from the Second Punic War on, in all 
 classes, there followed — anxious for a life more 
 affluent and brilliant — generations the more 
 incited to follow the examples that emanated 
 from the great metropolises of the Orient, particu- 
 larly Alexandria, which was for the Romans of 
 the Republic what Paris is for us to-day. This 
 movement, spontaneous, regular, natural, was 
 every now and then violently accelerated by the 
 conquest of a great Oriental state. One observes, 
 
i6 ** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 after each one of the great annexations of Oriental 
 lands, a more intense delirium of luxury and 
 pleasure: the first time, after the acquisition of 
 the kingdom of Pergamus, through a kind of 
 contagion communicated by the sumptuous furni- 
 ture of King Attalus, which was sold at auction 
 and scattered among the wealthy houses of Italy 
 to excite the still simple desires and the yet 
 sluggish imaginations of the Italians; the second 
 time, after the conquest of Pontus and of Syria, 
 made by Lucullus and by Pompey; finally, the 
 third time, after the conquest of Egypt made 
 by Augustus, when the influence of that land — 
 the France of the ancient world' — so actively 
 invaded Haly that no social force could longer 
 resist it. 
 
 In this way, partly by natural, gradual, almost 
 imperceptible diffusion, partly by violent crises, 
 we see the mania for luxury and the appetite 
 for pleasure beginning, growing, becoming ag- 
 gravated from generation to generation in all 
 Roman society, for two centuries, changing the 
 mentality and morality of the people ; we see the 
 institutions and public policy being altered; all 
 Roman history a-making under the action of 
 this force, formidable and immanent in the whole 
 nation. It breaks down all obstacles confronting 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 17 
 
 it — the forces of traditions, laws, institutions, 
 interests of classes, opposition of parties, the 
 efforts of thinking men. The historical aristocracy 
 becomes impoverished and weak; before it rise 
 to power the millionaires, the parvenus, the great 
 capitalists, enriched in the provinces. A part 
 of the nobility, after having long despised them, 
 sets itself to fraternise with them, to marry 
 their wealthy daughters, cause them to share 
 power; seeks to prop with their millions the pre- 
 eminence of its ^wn rank, menaced by the dis- 
 content, the spirit of revolt, the growing pride, 
 of the middle class. Meanwhile, another part of 
 the aristocracy, either too haughty and ambitious, 
 or too poor, scorns this alliance, puts itsslf at the 
 head of the democratic party, foments in the mid- 
 dle classes the spirit of antagonism against the 
 nobles and the rich, leads them to the assault on 
 the citadels of aristocratic and democratic power. 
 Hence the mad internal struggles that redden 
 Rome with blood and complicate so tragically, 
 especially after the Gracchi, the external polity. 
 The increasing wants of the members of all 
 classes, the debts that are their inevitable conse- 
 quence, the universal longing, partly unsatisfied 
 for lack of means, for the pleasures of the subtle 
 Asiatic civilisations, infused into this whole 
 
i8 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 history a demoniac frenzy that to-day, after so 
 many centuries, fascinates and appals us. 
 
 To satisfy their wants, to pay their debts, 
 the classes now set upon each other, each to rob 
 in turn the goods of the other, in the crudest 
 civil war that history records; now, tired of 
 doing themselves evil, they unite and precipitate 
 themselves on the world outside of Italy, to 
 sack the wealth that its owners do not know 
 how to defend. In the great revolutions of 
 Marius and Sulla, the democratic party is the in- 
 strument with which a part of the debt-burdened 
 middle classes seek to rehabilitate themselves 
 by robbing the plutocracy and the aristocracy 
 yet opulent; but Sulla reverses the situation, 
 makes a coalition of aristocrats and the miserable 
 of the populace, and re-establishes the fortunes 
 of the nobility, despoiling the wealthy knights 
 and a part of the middle classes — a. terrible civil 
 war that leaves in Italy a hate, a despondency, 
 a distress, that seem at a certain moment as if 
 they must weigh eternally on the spirit of the 
 unhappy nation. When, lo! there appears the 
 strongest man in the history of Rome, Lucullus, 
 and drags Italy out of the despondency in which 
 it crouched, leads it into the ways of the world, 
 and persuades it that the best means of forgetting 
 
"Corruption " in Ancient Rome 19 
 
 the losses and ruin undergone in the civil wars, / y 
 is to recuperate on the riches of the cowardly 
 Orientals. As little by little the treasures of 
 Mithridates, conquered by LucuUus in the Orient, 
 arrive in Italy, Italy begins anew to divert itself, to 
 construct palaces and villas, to squander in luxury. 
 Pompey, envious of the glory of LucuUus, follows 
 his example, conquers Syria, sends new treasures 
 to Italy, carries from the East the jewels of 
 Mithridates, and displaying them in the temple 
 of Jove, rouses a passion for gems in the Roman 
 women ; he also builds the first great stone theatre 
 to rise in Rome. All the political men in Rome 
 try to make money out of foreign countries : those 
 who cannot, like the great, conquer an empire, 
 confine themselves to blackmailing the countries 
 and petty states that tremble before the shadow of 
 Rome; the courts of the secondary kings of the 
 Orient, the court of the Ptolemies at Alexandria, 
 — ^all are invaded by a horde of insatiable senators 
 and knights, who, menacing and promising, extort 
 money to spend in Italy and foment the grow- 
 ing extravagance. The debts pile up, the political 
 corruption overflows, scandals follow, the parties 
 in Rome rend each other madly, though hail- 
 fellow-well-met in the provinces to plunder sub- 
 jects and vassals. In the midst of this vast 
 
20 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 disorder Caesar, the man of destiny, rises, and 
 with varying fortune makes a way for himself 
 until he beckons Italy to follow him, to find 
 success and treasures in regions new — ^not in the 
 rich and fabulous East, but beyond the Alps, 
 in barbarous Gaul, bristling with fighters and 
 forests. 
 
 But this insane effort to prey on every part 
 of the Empire finally tires Italy; quarrels over 
 the division of spoils embitter friends; the im- 
 mensity of the conquests, made in a few years of 
 reckless enthusiasm, is alarming. Finally a new 
 civil war breaks out, terrible and interminable, 
 in which classes and families fall upon each other 
 anew, to tear away in turn the spoils taken 
 together abroad. Out of the tremendous dis- 
 cord rises at last the pacifier, Augustus, who 
 is able gradually, by cleverness and infinite 
 patience, to re-establish peace and order in the 
 troubled empire. How? — why? Because the 
 combination of events of the times allows him 
 to use to ends of peace the same forces with 
 which the preceding generations had fomented 
 so much disorder— desires for ease, pleasure, 
 culture, wealth growing with the generations 
 making it. Thereupon begins in the whole Em- 
 pire universal progress in agriculture, industry, 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 21 
 
 trade, which, on a small scale, may be compared 
 to what we to-day witness and share; a progress 
 for which, then as now, the chief condition was 
 peace. As soon as men realised that peace gives 
 that greater wealth, those enjoyments more refined, 
 that higher culture, which for a century they had 
 sought by war, Italy became quiet ; revolutionists 
 became guardians and guards of order; there 
 gathered about Augustus a coalition of social 
 forces that tended to impose on the Empire, 
 alike on the parts that wished it and those that 
 did not, the Pax Romana. 
 
 Now all this immense story that fills three cen- 
 turies, that gathers within itself so many revolu- 
 tions, so many legislative reforms, so many great 
 men, so many events, tragic and glorious, this 
 vast history that for so many centuries holds 
 the interest of all cultured nations, and that, 
 considered as a whole, seems almost a prodigy, 
 you can, on the track of the old idea of "corrup- 
 tion," explain in its profoundest origins by one 
 small fact, universal, common, of the very simplest 
 ■ — something that every one may observe in the 
 limited circle of his own personal experience, — 
 by that automatic increase of ambitions and de- 
 sires, with every new generation, which prevents 
 the human world from crystallising in one form, 
 
2 2 ** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 constrains it to continual changes in material 
 make-up as well as in ideals and moral appearance. 
 In other words, every new generation must, in 
 order to satisfy that part of its aspirations which 
 is peculiarly and entirely its own, alter, whether 
 little or much, in one way or another, the condition 
 of the world it entered at birth. We can then, in 
 our personal experiences every day, verify the 
 universal law of history — a law that can act with 
 greater or less intensity, more or less rapidity, 
 according to times and places, but that ceases to 
 authenticate itself at no time and in no place. 
 The United States is subject to that law to-day, 
 / as is old Europe, as will be future generations, 
 and as past ages were. Moreover, to understand 
 at bottom this phenomenon, which appears to me 
 to be the soul of all history, it is well to add this 
 consideration : It is evident that there is a capital 
 difference between our judgment of this phenome- 
 non and that of the ancients; to them it was a 
 malevolent force of dissolution to which should 
 be attributed all in Roman history that was 
 sinister and dreadful, a sure sign of incurable 
 decay; that is why they called it "corruption of 
 customs," and so lamented it. To-day, on the 
 contrary, it appears to us a universal beneficent 
 process of transformation; so true is this that we 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 23 
 
 call "progress" many facts which the ancients J 
 attributed to "corruption." It were useless to 
 expand too much in examples; enough to cite 
 a few. In the third ode of the first book, in 
 which he so tenderly salutes the departing Virgil, 
 Horace covers with invective, as an evil-doer 
 and the corrupter of the human race, that im- 
 pious being who invented the ship, which causes 
 man, created for the land, to walk across waters. 
 Who would to-day dare repeat those maledictions 
 against the bold builders who construct the 
 magnificent trans-Atlantic liners on which, in a 
 dozen days from Genoa, one lands in Boston or 
 New York? "Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia," 
 exclaims Horace — ^that is to say, in anticipation 
 he considered the Wright brothers crazy. 
 
 Who, save some man of erudition, has know- 
 ledge to-day of sumptuary laws ? We should laugh 
 them all down with one Homeric guffaw, if to-day 
 it entered somebody's head to propose a law that 
 forbade fair ladies to spend more than a certain 
 sum on their clothes, or numbered the hats they 
 might wear ; or that regulated dinners of ceremony, 
 fixing the number of courses, the variety of wines, 
 and the total expense ; or that prohibited labouring 
 men and women from wearing certain stuffs or 
 certain objects that were wont to be found only 
 
24 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 upon the persons of people of wealth and leisure. 
 And yet laws of this tenor were compiled, pub- 
 lished, observed, up to two centuries ago, without 
 any one's finding it absurd. The historic force 
 that, as riches increase, impels the new generations 
 to desire new satisfactions, new pleasures, operated 
 then as to-day; only then men were inclined to 
 consider it as a new kind of ominous disease that 
 needed checking. To-day men regard that con- 
 stant transformation either as beneficent, or at 
 least as such a matter of course that almost no 
 one heeds it ; just as no one notices the alternations 
 of day and night, or the change of seasons. On 
 the contrary, we have little by little become 
 so confident of the goodness of this force that 
 drives the coming generation on into the unknown 
 future, that society, European, American, among 
 other liberties has won in the nineteenth century, 
 full and entire, a liberty that the ancients did not 
 know — freedom in vice. 
 
 To the Romans it appeared most natural that 
 the state should survey private habits, should 
 spy out what a citizen, particularly a citizen be- 
 longing to the ruling classes, did within domestic 
 walls — should see whether he became intoxicated, 
 whether he were a gourmand, whether he con- 
 tracted debts, spending much or little, whether he 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 25 
 
 betrayed his wife. The age of Augustus was cul- 
 tured, civilised, liberal, and in many things re- 
 sembled our own; yet on this point the dominating 
 ideas were so different from ours, that at one time 
 Augustus was forced by public opinion to propose 
 a law on adultery by which all Roman citizens of 
 both sexes guilty of this crime were condemned to 
 exile and the confiscation of half their substance, 
 and there was given to any citizen the right to 
 accuse the guilty. Could you imagine it possible 
 to-day, even for a few weeks, to establish this 
 regime of terror in the kingdom of Amor? But 
 the ancients were always inclined to consider as 
 exceedingly dangerous for the upper classes that 
 relaxing of customs which always follows periods 
 of rapid enrichment, of great gain in comforts; 
 behind his own walls to-day, every one is free to 
 indulge himself as he will, to the confines of crime. 
 How can we explain this important difference 
 in judging one of the essential phenomena of 
 historic life? Has this phenomenon changed na- 
 ture, and from bad, by some miracle, become 
 good? Or are we wiser than our forefathers, 
 judging with experience what they could hardly 
 comprehend? There is no doubt that the Latin 
 writers, particularly Horace and Livy, were so 
 severe in condemning this progressive movement 
 
26 ** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 of wants because of unconscious political solici- 
 tude, because intellectual men expressed the 
 opinions, sentiments, and also the prejudices of 
 historic aristocracy, and this detested the pro- 
 gress of ambitio, avaritia, luxuria, because they 
 undermined the dominance of its class. On the 
 other hand, it is certain that in the modem world 
 every increase of consumption, every waste, every 
 vice, seems permissible, indeed almost meritorious, 
 because men of industry and trade, the employees 
 in industries — ^that is, all the people that gain by 
 the diffusion of luxuries, by the spread of vices or 
 new wants — ^have acquired, thanks above all to 
 democratic institutions, and to the progress of 
 cities, an immense political power that in times 
 past they lacked. If, for example, in Europe the 
 beer-makers and distillers of alcohol were not 
 more powerful in the electoral field than the 
 philosophers and academicians, governments 
 would more easily recognise that the masses 
 should not be allowed to poison themselves or 
 future generations by chronic drunkenness. 
 
 Between these two extremes of exaggeration, 
 inspired by a self-interest easy to discover, is 
 there not a true middle way that we can deduce 
 from the study of Roman history and from the 
 observation of contemporary life? 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 27 
 
 In the pessimism with which the ancients 
 regarded progress as corruption, there was a 
 basis of truth, just as there is a principle of error 
 in the too serene optimism with which we con- 
 sider corruption as progress. This force that 
 pushes the new generations on to the future, at 
 once creates and destroys ; its destructive energy 
 is specially felt in ages like Caesar's in ancient 
 Rome and ours in the modem world, in which facil- 
 ity in the accumulation of wealth over-excites 
 desires and ambitions in all classes. They are the 
 times in which personal egoism — ^what to-day we 
 call individualism — ^usurps a place above all that 
 represents in society the interest of the species: 
 national duty, the self-abnegation of each for the 
 sake of the common good. Then these vices and 
 defects become always more common : intellectual 
 agitation, the weakening of the spirit of tradition, 
 the general relaxation of discipline, the loss of 
 authority, ethical confusion and disorder. At the 
 same time that certain moral sentiments refine 
 themselves, certain individualisms grow fiercer. 
 The government may no longer represent the 
 ideas, the aspirations, the energetic will of a 
 small oligarchy ; it must make itself more yielding 
 and gracious at the same time that it is becoming 
 more contradictory and discordant. Family 
 
2 8 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 discipline is relaxed ; the new generations shake off 
 early the influence of the past; the sentiment of 
 honour and the rigour of moral, religious, and po- 
 litical principles are weakened by a spirit of utility 
 and expediency by which, more or less openly, 
 confessing it or dissimulating, men always seek 
 to do, not that which is right and decorous, but 
 that which is utilitarian. The civic spirit tends 
 to die out; the number of persons capable of 
 suffering, or even of working, disinterestedly for 
 the common good, for the future, diminishes; 
 children are not wanted; men prefer to live in 
 accord with those in power, ignoring their vices, 
 rather than. openly opposing them. Public events 
 do not interest unless they include a personal 
 advantage. 
 
 This is the state of mind that is now diffusing 
 itself throughout Europe ; the same state of mind 
 that, with the documents at hand, I have found 
 in the age of Caesar and Augustus, and seen 
 progressively diffusing itself throughout ancient 
 Italy. The likeness is so great that we re-find 
 in those far-away times, especially in the upper 
 classes, exactly that restless condition that 
 we define by the word "nervousness." Horace 
 speaks of this state of mind, which we consider 
 peculiar to ourselves, and describes it, by felicitous 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 29 
 
 image, as strenua inertia — strenuous inertia, — 
 agitation vain and ineffective, always wanting 
 something new, but not really knowing what, 
 desiring most ardently yet speedily tiring of a 
 desire gratified. Now it is clear that if these vices 
 spread too much, if they are not complemented 
 by an increase of material resources, of know- 
 ledge, of sufficient population, they can lead a 
 nation rapidly to ruin. We do not feel very 
 keenly the fear of this danger — the European- 
 American civilisation is so rich, has at its disposal 
 so much knowledge, so many men, so many instru- 
 mentalities, has cut off for itself such a measureless 
 part of the globe, that it can afford to look un- 
 afraid into the future. The abyss is so far away 
 that only a few philosophers barely descry it in 
 the gray mist of distant years. But the ancient 
 world — so much poorer, smaller, weaker — felt 
 that it could not squander as we do, and saw the 
 abyss near at hand. 
 
 To-day men and women waste fabulous wealth 
 in luxury ; that is, they spend not to satisfy some 
 reasonable need, but to show to others of their 
 kind how rich they are, or, further, to make 
 others believe them richer than they are. If 
 these resources were everywhere saved as they 
 are in France, the progress of the world would be 
 
so "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 quicker, and the new countries would more 
 easily find in Europe and in themselves the capital 
 necessary for their development. At all events, 
 our age develops fast, and notwithstanding all 
 this waste, abounds in a plenty that is enough 
 to keep men from fearing the growth of this 
 wanton luxury and from planning to restrain it 
 by laws. In the ancient world, on the other 
 hand, the wealthy classes and the state had only 
 to abandon themselves a little too much to the 
 prodigality that for us has become almost a 
 regular thing, when suddenly means were wanting 
 to meet the most essential needs of social life. 
 Tacitus has summarised an interesting discourse 
 of Tiberius, in which the famous emperor cen- 
 sures the ladies of Rome in terms cold, incisive, 
 and succinct, because they spend too much money 
 on pearls and diamonds. "Our money," said 
 Tiberius, "goes away to India and we are in 
 want of the precious metals to carry on the mili- 
 tary administration; we have to give up the 
 defence of the frontiers." According to the 
 opinion of an administrator so sagacious and a 
 general so valiant as Tiberius, in the richest 
 period of the Roman Empire, a lady of Rome 
 could not buy pearls and diamonds without 
 directly weakening the defence of the frontiers. 
 
''Corruption" in Ancient Rome 31 
 
 Indulgence in the luxury of jewels looked almost 
 like high treason. 
 
 Similar observations might be made on another 
 grave question — the increase of population. One 
 of the most serious effects of individualism that 
 accompanies the increase of civilisation and 
 wealth, is the decrease of the birth-rate. France, 
 which knows how to temper its luxury, which 
 gives to other peoples an example of saving means 
 for the future, has on the other hand given the 
 example of egoism in the family, lowering the 
 birth-rate. England, for a long time so fecund, 
 seems to follow France. The more uniformly 
 settled and Well-to-do parts of the North American 
 Union, the Eastern States and New England, are 
 even more sterile than France. However, no one 
 of these nations suffers to-day from the small 
 increase of population; there are yet so many 
 poor and fecund peoples that they can easily fill 
 the gaps. In the ancient world this was not the 
 case; population was always and everywhere so 
 scanty that if for some reason it diminished but 
 slightly, the states could not get on, finding them- 
 selves at the mercy of what they called a ' ' famine 
 of men, " a malady more serious and troublesome 
 than over-population. In the Roman Empire 
 the Occidental provinces finally fell into the hands 
 
32 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 of the barbarians, chiefly because the Graeco- 
 Latin civilisation steriHsed the family, reducing 
 the population incurably. No wonder that the 
 aiicients applied the term "corruption" to a 
 momentum of desires which, although increasing 
 culture and the refinements of living, easily 
 menaced the sources of the nation's physical 
 existence. 
 
 There is, then, a more general conclusion to 
 draw from this experience. It is not by chance, 
 nor the unaccountable caprice of a few ancient 
 writers, that we possess so many small facts on 
 the development of luxury and the transformation 
 of customs in ancient Rome; that, for example* 
 among the records of great wars, of diplomatic 
 missions, of catastrophes political and economic, 
 we find given the date when the art of fattening 
 fowls was imported into Italy. The little facts 
 are not so unworthy of the majesty of Roman 
 history as one at first might think. Everything 
 is bound together in the life of a nation, and 
 nothing without importance; the humblest acts, 
 most personal and deepest hidden in the penetralia 
 of the home, that no one sees, none knows, have 
 an effect, immediate or remote, on the common 
 life of the nation. There is, between these small, 
 insignificant facts and the wars, the revolutions, 
 
"Corruption" in Ancient Rome 33 
 
 the tremendous political and social events that 
 bewilder men, a tie, often invisible to most peo- 
 ple, yet nevertheless indestructible. 
 
 Nothing in the world is without import: what 
 women spend for their toilet, the resistance that 
 men make from day to day to the temptations 
 of the commonest pleasures, the new and petty 
 needs that insinuate themselves unconsciously 
 into the habits of all; the reading, the conversa- 
 tions, the impressions, even the most fugacious 
 that pass in our spirit — all these things, little and 
 innumerable, that no historian registers, have 
 contributed to produce this revolution, that war, 
 this catastrophe, that political overturn, which 
 men wonder at and study as a prodigy. 
 
 The causes of how many apparently mysterious 
 historical events would be more clearly and pro- 
 foundly known, of how many periods would the 
 spirit be better understood, did we only possess 
 the private records of the families that make up 
 the ruling classes! Every deed we do in the 
 intimacy of the home reacts on the whole of our 
 environment. With our every act we assume a 
 responsibility toward the nation and posterity, the 
 sanction for which, near or far away, is in events. 
 This justifies, at least in part, the ancient concep- 
 tion by which the state had the right to exercise 
 
34 "Corruption" in Ancient Rome 
 
 vigilance over its citizens, their private acts, 
 customs, pleasures, vices, caprices. This vigi- 
 lance, the laws that regulated it, the moral and 
 political teachings that brought pressure to bear 
 in the exercise of these laws, tended above all to 
 charge upon the individual man the social re- 
 sponsibility of his single acts; to remind him that 
 in the things most personal, aside from the in- 
 dividual pain or pleasure, there was an interest, 
 a good or an evil, in common. 
 
 Modern men — and it is a revolution greater 
 than that finished in political form in the nine- 
 teenth century — have been freed from these 
 bonds, from these obligations. Indeed, modern 
 civilisation has made it a duty for each one to 
 spend, to enjoy, to waste as much as he can, with- 
 out any disturbing thought as to the ultimate 
 consequences of what he does. The world is so 
 rich, population grows so rapidly, civilisation is 
 armed with so much knowledge in its struggle 
 against the barbarian and against nature, that 
 to-day we are able to laugh at the timid pru- 
 dence of our forefathers, who had, as it were, a 
 fear of wealth, of pleasure, of love; we can 
 boast in the pride of triumph that we are the 
 first who dare in the midst of a conquered 
 world, to enjoy — enjoy without scruple, with- 
 
** Corruption" in Ancient Rome 35 
 
 out restriction — all the good things life offers to 
 the strong. 
 
 But who knows? Perhaps this felicitous mo- 
 ment will not last forever; perhaps one day will 
 see men, grown more numerous, feel the need of 
 the ancient wisdom and prudence. It is at least 
 permitted the philosopher and the historian to ask 
 if this magnificent but unbridled freedom which 
 we enjoy suits all times, and not only those in 
 which nations coming into being can find a 
 small dower in their cradle as you have done — 
 three millions of square miles of land! 
 
The History and Legend of 
 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 37 
 
TN the history of Rome figures of women are 
 ■■• rare, because only men dominated there, im- 
 posing everywhere the brute force, the roughness, 
 and the egoism that lie at the base of their nature : 
 they honoured the mater familias because she 
 bore children and kept the slaves from steaHng 
 the flour from the bin and drinking the wine from 
 the amphore on the sly. They despised the woman 
 who made of her beauty and vivacity an adorn- 
 ment of social life, a prize sought after and dis- 
 puted by the men. However, in this virile history 
 there does appear, on a sudden, the figure of a 
 woman, strange and wonderful, a kind of living 
 Venus. Plutarch thus describes the arrival of 
 Cleopatra at Tarsus and her first meeting with 
 Antony : 
 
 She was sailing tranquilly along the Cydnus, on 
 a bark with a golden stem, with sails of purple and 
 oars of silver, and the dip of the oars was rythmed 
 to the sound of flutes, blending with music of lyres. 
 She herself, the Queen, wondrously clad as Venus 
 is pictured, was lying under an awning gold embroid- 
 
 39 
 
40 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 ered. Boys dressed as Cupids stood at her side, gently 
 waving fans to refresh her; her maidens, every one 
 beautiful and clad as a Naiad or a Grace, directed 
 the boat, some at the rudder, others at the ropes. 
 Both banks of the stream were sweet with the per- 
 fumes burning on the vessel. 
 
 Posterity is yet dazzled by this ship, refulgent 
 with purple and gold and melodious with flutes 
 and lyres. If we are spellbound by Plutarch's 
 description, it does not seem strange to us that 
 Antony should be — ^he who could not only be- 
 hold in person that wonderful Venus, but could 
 dine with her tete-a-tete, in a splendour of torches 
 indescribable. Surely this is a setting in no wise 
 improbable for the beginning of the famous 
 romance of the love of Antony and Cleopatra, 
 and its development as probable as its beginning; 
 the follies committed by Antony for the seduc- 
 tive Queen of the Orient, the divorce of Octavia, 
 the war for love of Cleopatra, kindled in the 
 whole Empire, and the miserable catastrophe. 
 Are there not to be seen in recent centuries many 
 men of power putting their greatness to risk and 
 sometimes to ruin for love of a woman? Are not 
 the love letters of great statesmen — for instance, 
 those of Mirabeau and of Gambetta — admitted 
 to the semi-official part of modem history -writing? 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 41 
 
 And so also Antony could love a queen and, like 
 so many modern statesmen, commit follies for 
 her. A French critic of my book, burning his 
 ships behind him, has said that Antony was a 
 Roman Boulanger. 
 
 The romance pleases: art takes it as subject 
 and re-takes it; but that does not keep off the 
 brutal hands of criticism. Before all, it should 
 be observed that moderns feel and interpret the 
 romance of Antony and Cleopatra in a way very 
 different from that of the ancients. From Shake- 
 speare to De Heredia and Henri Houssaye, artists 
 and historians have described with sympathy, 
 even almost idealised, this passion that throws 
 away in a lightning flash every human greatness, 
 to pursue the mantle of a fleeing woman; they 
 find in the follies of Antony something profoundly 
 human that moves them, fascinates them, and 
 makes them indulgent. To the ancients, on the 
 contrary, the amours of Antony and Cleopatra 
 were but a dishonourable degeneration of the 
 passion. They have no excuse for the man whom 
 love for a woman impelled to desert in battle, to 
 abandon soldiers, friends, relatives, to conspire 
 against the greatness of Rome. 
 
 This very same difference of interpretation 
 recurs in the history of the amours of Ccesar. 
 
42 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 Modem writers regard what the ancients tell us 
 of the numerous loves — ^real or imaginary — of 
 Caesar, as almost a new laurel with which to 
 decorate his figure. On the contrary, the ancients 
 recounted and spread abroad, and perhaps in part 
 invented, these storiettes of gallantry for quite 
 opposite reasons — as source of dishonour, to dis- 
 credit him, to demonstrate that Caesar was ef- 
 feminate, that he could not give guarantee of 
 knowing how to lead the armies and to fulfil the 
 virile and arduous duties that awaited every emi- 
 nent Roman. There is in our way of thinking 
 a vein of romanticism wanting in the ancient 
 mind. We see in love a certain forgetfulness of 
 ourselves, a certain blindness of egoism and the 
 more material passions, a kind of power of self- 
 abnegation, which, inasmuch as it is unconscious, 
 confers a certain nobility and dignity; therefore 
 we are indulgent to mistakes and follies committed 
 for the sake of passion, while the ancients were 
 very severe. We pardon with a certain compassion 
 the man who for love of a woman has not 
 hesitated to bury himself under the ruin of his 
 own greatness; the ancients, on the contrary, con- 
 sidered him the most dangerous and despicable 
 of the insane. 
 
 Criticism has not contented itself with re-giving 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 43 
 
 to the ancient romance the significance it had for 
 those that made it and the pubhc that fiirst read 
 it. Archaeologists have discovered upon coins 
 portraits of Cleopatra, and now critics have con- 
 fronted these portraits with the poetic descriptions 
 given by Roman historians and have found the 
 descriptions generously fanciful: in the portraits 
 we do not see the countenance of a Venus, delicate, 
 gracious, smiling, nor even the fine and sensuous 
 beauty of a Marquise de Pompadour, but a face 
 fleshy and, as the French would say, bouffie; the 
 nose, a powerful aquiline; the face of a woman 
 on in years, ambitious, imperious, one which re- 
 calls that of Maria Theresa. It will be said that 
 judgments as to beauty are personal ; that Antony, 
 who saw her alive, could decide better than we 
 who see her portraits half effaced by the centuries ; 
 that the attractive power of a woman emanates 
 not only from corporal beauty, but also — and yet 
 more — from her spirit. The taste of Cleopatra, 
 her vivacity, her cleverness, her exquisite art in 
 conversation, is vaunted by all. 
 
 Perhaps, however, Cleopatra, beautiful or ugly, 
 is of little consequence; when one studies the 
 history of her relations with Antony, there is 
 small place, and that but toward the end, for the 
 passion of love. It will be easy to persuade you 
 
44 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 of this if you follow the simple chronological ex- 
 position of facts I shall give you. Antony makes 
 the acquaintance of Cleopatra at Tarsus toward 
 the end of 41 B.C., passes the winter of 41-40 
 with her at Alexandria; leaves her in the spring 
 of 40 and stays away from her more than three 
 years, till the autumn of 37. There is no proof 
 that during this time Antony sighed for the Queen 
 of Egypt as a lover far away; on the contrary, 
 he attends, with alacrity worthy of praise, to pre- 
 paring the conquest of Persia, to putting into 
 execution the great design conceived by Csesar, 
 the plan of war that Antony had come upon among 
 the papers of the Dictator the evening of the 
 fifteenth of March, 44 b.c. All order social 
 and political, the army, the state, public finance, 
 wealth private and public, is going to pieces 
 around him. The triumvirate power, built up on 
 the uncertain foundation of these ruins, is totter- 
 ing; Antony realises that only a great external 
 success can give to him and his party the author- 
 ity and the money necessary to establish a solid 
 government, and resolves to enter into possession 
 of the political legacy of his teacher and patron, 
 x/ taking up its central idea, the conquest of Persia. 
 The difficulties are grave. Soldiers are not 
 wanting, but money. The revolution has ruined 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 45 
 
 the Empire and Italy; all the reserve funds have 
 been dissipated; the finances of the state are in 
 such straits that not even the soldiers can be paid 
 punctually and the legions every now and then 
 claim their dues by revolt. Antony is not dis- 
 couraged. The historians, however antagonistic 
 to him, describe him as exceedingly busy in those 
 four years, extracting from all parts of the Em- 
 pire that bit of money still in circulation. Then 
 at one stroke, in the second half of 37, when, 
 preparations finished, it is time to put hand to 
 the execution, the ancient historians without in 
 any way explaining to us this sudden act, most 
 unforeseen, make him depart for Antioch to meet 
 Cleopatra, who has been invited by him to join 
 him. For what reason does Antony after three 
 years, all of a sudden, re-join Cleopatra? The 
 secret of the story of Antony and Cleopatra lies 
 entirely in this question. 
 
 Plutarch says that Antony went to Antioch 
 borne by the fiery and untamed courser of his 
 own spirit; in other words, because passion was 
 already beginning to make him lose common 
 sense. Not finding other explanations in the 
 ancient writers, posterity has accepted this, which 
 was simple enough; but about a century ago an 
 erudite Frenchman, Letronne, studying certain 
 
46 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 coins, and comparing with them certain pas- 
 sages in ancient historians, until then remaining 
 obscure, was able to demonstrate that in 36 B.C., 
 at Antioch,, Antony married Cleopatra with all 
 the dynastic ceremonies of Egypt, and that there- 
 upon Antony became King of Egypt, although he 
 did not dare assume the title. 
 
 The explanation of Letronne, which is founded 
 on official documents and coins, is without doubt 
 more dependable than that of Plutarch, which 
 is reducible to an imaginative metaphor; and 
 the discovery of Letronne, concluding that con- 
 catenation of facts that I have set forth, finally 
 persuades me to affirm that not a passion of love, 
 suddenly re-awakened, led Antony in the second 
 half of 37 B.C. to Antioch to meet the Queen of 
 Egypt, but a political scheme well thought out. 
 Antony wanted Egypt and not the beautiful 
 person of its queen; he meant by this dynastic 
 marriage to establish the Roman protectorate in 
 the valley of the Nile, and to be able to dispose, 
 for the Persian campaign, of the treasures of the 
 Kingdom of the Ptolemies. At that time, after 
 the plunderings of other regions of the Orient by 
 the politicians of Rome, there was but one state 
 rich in reserves of precious metals, Egypt. Since, 
 little by little, the economic crisis of the Roman 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 47 
 
 Empire was aggravating, the Roman polity had 
 to gravitate perforce toward Egypt, as toward 
 the country capable of providing Rome with the 
 capital necessary to continue its policy in every 
 part of the Empire. 
 
 Cassar already understood this; his mysterious 
 and obscure connection with Cleopatra had cer- 
 tainly for ultimate motive and reason this political 
 necessity; and Antony, in marrying Cleopatra, 
 probably only applied more or less shrewdly the 
 ideas that C^sar had originated in the refulgent 
 crepuscle of his tempestuous career. You will 
 ask me why Antony, if he had need of the valley 
 of the Nile, recurred to this strange expedient 
 of a marriage, instead of conquering the kingdom, 
 and why Cleopatra bemeaned herself to marry 
 the triumvir. The reply is not difficult to him 
 who knows the history of Rome. There was a 
 long-standing tradition in Roman policy to ex- 
 ploit Egypt but to respect its independence; it 
 may be, because the country was considered 
 more difficult to govern than in truth it was, or 
 because there existed for this most ancient land, 
 the seat of all the most refined arts, the most 
 learned schools, the choicest industries, exceed- 
 ingly rich and highly civilised, a regard that 
 somewhat resembles what France imposes on 
 
48 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 the world to-day. Finally, it may be because it 
 was held that if Egypt were annexed, its influ- 
 ence on Italy would be too much in the ascend- 
 ent, and the traditions of the old Roman life 
 would be conclusively overwhelmed by the inva- 
 sion of the customs, the ideas, the refinements — 
 in a word, by the corruptions of Egypt. Antony, 
 who was set in the idea of repeating in Persia the 
 adventure of Alexander the Great, did not dare 
 bring about an annexation which would have 
 been severely judged in Italy and which he, like 
 the others, thought more dangerous than in reality 
 it was. On the other hand, with a dynastic mar- 
 riage, he was able to secure for himself all the 
 advantages of effective possession, without run- 
 ning the risks of annexation ; so he resolved upon 
 this artifice, which, I repeat, had probably been 
 imagined by Csesat. As to Cleopatra, her gov- 
 ernment was menaced by a strong internal op- 
 position, the causes for which are ill known; 
 marrying Antony, she gathered about her throne, 
 to protect it, formidable guards, the Roman 
 legions. 
 
 To sum up, the romance of Antony and Cleo- 
 patra covers, at least in its beginnings, a political 
 treaty. With the marriage, Cleopatra seeks to 
 steady her wavering power ; Antony, to place the 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 49 
 
 valley of the Nile under the Roman protectorate. 
 How then was the famous romance bom? The 
 actual history of Antony and Cleopatra is one 
 of the most tragic episodes of a struggle that lace- 
 rated the Roman Empire for four centuries, until 
 it finally destroyed it, the struggle between Orient 
 and Occident. During the age of Caesar, little 
 by little, without any one's realising it at first, 
 there arose and fulfilled itself a fact of the gravest 
 importance; that is, the eastern part of the Em- 
 pire had grown out of proportion: first, from the 
 conquest of the Pontus, made by LucuUus, who 
 had added immense territory in Asia Minor ; then 
 by Pompey's conquest of Syria, and the protec- 
 torate extended by him over all Palestine and a 
 considerable part of Arabia. These new districts 
 were not only enormous in extension; they were 
 also populous, wealthy, fertile, celebrated for 
 ancient culture; they held the busiest industrial 
 cities, the best cultivated regions of the ancient 
 world, the most famous seats of arts, letters, 
 science, therefore their annexation, made rapidly 
 in few years, could but trouble the already un- 
 stable equilibrium of the Empire. Italy was then, 
 compared with these provinces, a poor and bar- 
 barous land; because southern Italy was ruined 
 by the wars of preceding epochs, and northern 
 
50 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 Italy, naturally the wealthier part, was still crude 
 and in the beginning of its development. The 
 other western provinces nearer Italy were poorer 
 and less civilised than Italy, except GalHa Nar- 
 bonensis and certain parts of southern Spain. 
 So that Rome, the capital of the Empire, came to 
 find itself far from the richest and most populous 
 regions, among territories poor and despoiled, 
 on the frontiers of barbarism — in such a situation 
 as the Russian Empire might find itself to-day if 
 it had its capital at Vladivostok or Kharbin. You 
 know that during the last years of the life of Caesar 
 it was rumoured several times that the Dictator 
 wished to remove the capital of the Empire; it 
 was said, to Alexandria in Egypt, to Ilium in 
 the district where Troy arose. It is impossible 
 to judge whether these reports were true or merely 
 invented by enemies of Caesar to damage him; 
 at any rate, true or false, they show that public 
 opinion was beginning to concern itself with the 
 "Eastern peril"; that is, with the danger that 
 the seat of empire must be shifted toward the 
 Orient and the too ample Asiatic and African 
 territory, and that Italy be one day uncrowned 
 of her metropolitan predominance, conquered 
 by so many wars. Such hear-says must have 
 seemed, even if not true, the more likely, because. 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 51 
 
 in his last two years, Cassar planned the conquest 
 of Persia. Now the natural basis of operations 
 for the conquest of Persia was to be found, not 
 in Italy, but in Asia Minor, and if Persia had been 
 conquered, it would not have been possible to 
 govern in Rome an empire so immeasurably en- 
 larged in the Orient. Everything therefore in- 
 duces to the belief that this question was at least 
 discussed in the coterie of the friends of Caesar; 
 and it was a serious question, because in it the 
 traditions, the aspirations, the interests of Italy 
 were in irreconcilable conflict with a supreme 
 necessity of state which one day or other would 
 impose itself, if some unforeseen event did not 
 intervene to solve it. 
 
 In the light of these considerations, the con- 
 duct of Antony becomes very clear. The marriage 
 at Antioch, by which he places Egypt under the 
 Roman protectorate, is the decisive act of a 
 policy that looks to transporting the centre of 
 his government toward the Orient, to be able to 
 accomplish more securely the conquest of Persia. 
 Antony, the heir of Caesar, the man who held 
 the papers of the Dictator, who knew his hidden 
 thoughts, who wished to complete the plans cut 
 off by his death, proposes to conquer Persia; to 
 conquer Persia, he must rely on the Oriental 
 
52 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 provinces that were the natural basis of opera- 
 tions for the great enterprise ; among these, Antony- 
 must support himself above all on Egypt, the 
 richest and most civilised and most able to supply 
 him with the necessary funds, of which he was 
 quite in want. Therefore he married the Cleopa- 
 tra whom, it was said at Rome, Cassar himself 
 had wished to marry — ^with whom, at any rate, 
 Caesar had much dallied and intrigued. Does 
 not this juxtaposition of facts seem luminous to 
 you? In 36 B.C., Antony marries Cleopatra, 
 as a few years before he had married Octavia, 
 the sister of the future Augustus, for political 
 reasons — ^in order to be able to dispose of the 
 political subsidies and finances of Egypt, for the 
 conquest of Persia. The conquest of Persia is 
 the ultimate motive of all his policy, the supreme 
 explanation of his every act. 
 
 However, little by little, this move, made on 
 both sides from considerations of political interest, 
 altered its character under the action of events, 
 of time, through the personal influence of Antony 
 and Cleopatra upon each other, and above all, 
 the power that Cleopatra acquired over Antony: 
 here is truly the most important part of all this 
 story. Those who have read my history know 
 that I have recounted hardly any of the anecdotes, 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 53 
 
 more or less odd or entertaining, with which an- 
 cient writers describe the intimate life of Antony 
 and Cleopatra, because it is impossible to dis- 
 criminate in them the part that is fact from that 
 which was invented or exaggerated by political 
 enmity. In history the difficulty of recognising 
 the truth gradually increases as one passes from 
 political to private life; because in politics the 
 acts of men and of parties are always bound to- 
 gether by either causes or effects of which a certain 
 number is always exactly known ; private life, on 
 the other hand, is, as it were, isolated and secret, 
 almost invariably impenetrable. What a great 
 man of state does in his own house, his valet knows 
 better than the historians of later times. 
 
 If for these reasons I have thought it prudent 
 not to accept in my work the stories and anecdotes 
 that the ancients recount of Antony and Cleo- 
 patra, without indeed risking to declare them 
 false, it is, on the contrary, not possible to deny 
 that Cleopatra gradually acquired great ascen- 
 dency over the mind of Antony, The circum- 
 stance is of itself highly probable. That Cleo- 
 patra was perhaps a Venus, as the ancients say, 
 or that she was provided with but a mediocre 
 beauty, as declare the portraits, matters little: 
 it is, however, certain that she was a woman of 
 
54 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 great cleverness and culture ; as woman and queen 
 of the richest and most civilised realm of the 
 ancient world, she was mistress of all those arts 
 of pleasure, of luxury, of elegance, that are the 
 most delicate and intoxicating fruit of all ma- 
 ture civilisations. Cleopatra might refigure, in 
 the ancient world, the wealthiest, most elegant, 
 and cultured Parisian lady in the world of 
 to-day. 
 
 Antony, on the other hand, was the descendant 
 of a family of that Roman nobility which still 
 preserved much rustic roughness in tastes, ideas, 
 habits ; he grew up in times in which the children 
 were still given Spartan training; he came to 
 Egypt from a nation which, notwithstanding its 
 military and diplomatic triumphs, could be con- 
 sidered, compared with Egypt, only poor, rude, 
 and barbarous. Upon this intelligent man, eager 
 for enjoyment, who had, like other noble Romans, 
 already begun to taste the charms of intellectual 
 civilisation, it was not Cleopatra alone that made 
 the keenest of impressions, but all Egypt, the 
 wonderful city of Alexandria, the sumptuous 
 palace of the Ptolemies — ^all that refined, elegant 
 splendour of which he found himself at one stroke 
 the master. What was there at Rome to com- 
 pare with Alexandria? — Rome, in spite of its 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 55 
 
 imperial power, abandoned to a fearful disorder 
 by the disregard of factions, encumbered with 
 ruin, its streets narrow and wretched, provided 
 as yet with but a single forum, narrow and plain, 
 the sole impressive monument of which was the 
 theatre of Pompey ; Rome, where the life was yet 
 crude, and objects of luxury so rare that they 
 had to be brought from the distant Orient? At 
 Alexandria, instead, the Paris of the ancient world, 
 were to be found all the best and most beautiful 
 things of the earth. There was a sumptuosity 
 of public edifices that the ancients never tire of 
 extolling — ^the quay seven stadia long, the light 
 house famous all over the Mediterranean, the mar- 
 vellous zoological garden, the Museum, the Gym- 
 nasium, innumerable temples, the unending palace 
 of the Ptolemies. There was an abundance, un- 
 heard of for those times, of objects of luxury — rugs, 
 glass, stuffs, papyruses, jewels, artistic pottery — 
 because they made all these things at Alexandria. 
 There was an abundance, greater than elsewhere, 
 of silk, of perfumes, of gems, of all the things im- 
 ported from the extreme East, because through 
 Alexandria passed one of the most frequented 
 routes of Indo-Chinese commerce. There, too, 
 were innumerable artists, writers, philosophers, 
 and savants; society life and intellectual life alike 
 
S6 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 fervid ; continuous movement to and fro of traffic, 
 continual passing of rare and curious things; 
 countless amusements ; life, more than elsewhere, 
 safe — at least so it was believed — because at 
 Alexandria were the great schools of medicine 
 and the great scientific physicians. 
 
 If other Italians who landed in Alexandria 
 were dazzled by so many splendours, Antony ought 
 to have been blinded; he entered Alexandria as 
 King. He who was bom at Rome in the small 
 and simple house of an impoverished noble family, 
 who had been brought up with Latin parsimony 
 to eat frugally, to drink wine only on festival 
 occasions, to wear the same clothes a long time, 
 to be served by a single slave — ^this man found 
 himself lord of the immense palace of the Ptole- 
 mies, where the kitchens alone were a hundred 
 times larger than the house of his fathers at 
 Rome ; where there were gathered for his pleasure 
 the most precious treasures and the most, mar- 
 vellous collections of works of art; where there 
 were trains of servants at his command, and 
 every wish could be immediately gratified. It 
 is therefore not necessary to suppose that Antony 
 was foolishly enamoured of the Queen of Egypt, 
 to understand the change that took place in him 
 after their marriage, as he tasted the inimitable 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 57 
 
 life of Alexandria, that elegance, that ease, that 
 wealth, that pomp without equal. 
 
 A man of action, grown in simplicity, tough- 
 ened by a rude life, he was all at once carried 
 into the midst of the subtlest and most highly 
 developed civilisation of the ancient world and 
 given the greatest facilities to enjoy and abuse 
 it that ever man had: as might have been 
 expected, he was intoxicated; he contracted 
 an almost insane passion for such a life; he 
 adored Egypt with such ardour as to forget for 
 it the nation of his birth and the modest home 
 of his boyhood. And then began the great tragedy 
 of his life, a tragedy not love-inspired, but politi- 
 cal. As the hold of Egypt strengthened on his 
 mind, Cleopatra tried to persuade him not to 
 conquer Persia, but to accept openly the kingdom 
 of Egypt, to found with her and with their children 
 a new dynasty, and to create a great new Egyptian 
 Empire, adding to Egypt the better part of the 
 provinces that Rome possessed in Africa and in 
 Asia, abandoning Italy and the provinces of the 
 West forever to their destiny. 
 
 Cleopatra had thought to snatch from Rome 
 its Oriental Empire by the arm of Antony, in 
 that immense disorder of revolution; to recon- 
 struct the great Empire of Egypt, placing at its 
 
58 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 head the first general of the time, creating an 
 army of Roman legionaries with the gold of the 
 Ptolemies; to make Egypt and its dynasty the 
 prime potentate of Africa and Asia, transferring 
 to Alexandria the political and diplomatic control 
 of the finest parts of the Mediterranean world. 
 
 As the move failed, men have deemed it folly 
 and stupidity; but he who knows how easy it is 
 to be wise after events, will judge this confused 
 policy of Cleopatra less curtly. At any rate, it 
 is certain that her scheme failed more because 
 of its own inconsistencies than through the vigour 
 and ability with which Rome tried to thwart it| 
 it is certain that in the execution of the plan, 
 Antony felt first in himself the tragic discord 
 between Orient and Occident that was so long 
 to lacerate the Empire ; and of that tragic discord 
 he was the first victim. An enthusiastic admirer 
 of Egypt, an ardent Hellenist, he is lured by his 
 great ambition to be king of Egypt, to renew 
 the famous line of the Ptolemies, to continue in 
 the East the glory and the traditions of Alexan- 
 der the Great : but the far-away voice of his father- 
 land still sounds in his ear ; he recalls the city of 
 his birth, the Senate in which he rose so many 
 times to speak, the Forum of his orations, the 
 Comitia that elected him to magistracies ; Octavia, 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 59 
 
 the gentlewoman he had wedded with the sacred 
 rites of Latin monogamy ; the friends and soldiers 
 with whom he had fought through so many coun- 
 tries in so many wars; the foundation principles 
 at home that ruled the family, the state, morality, 
 public and private. 
 
 Cleopatra's scheme, viewed from Alexandria, 
 was an heroic undertaking, almost divine, that 
 might have lifted him and his scions to the delights 
 of Olympus ; seen from Rome, by his childhood 's 
 friends, by his comrades in arms, by that people 
 of Italy who still so much admired him, it was 
 the shocking crime of faithlessness to his country ; 
 we call it high treason. Therefore he hesitates 
 long, doubting most of all whether he can keep 
 for the new Egyptian Empire the Roman legions, 
 made up largely of Italians, all commanded by 
 Italian officers. He does not know how to oppose 
 a resolute No to the insistences of Cleopatra and 
 loose himself from the fatal bond that keeps him 
 near her ; he can not go back to live in Italy after 
 having dwelt as king in Alexandria. Moreover, he 
 does not dare declare his intentions to his Roman 
 friends, fearing they will scatter; to the soldiers, 
 fearing they will revolt; to Italy, fearing her 
 judgment of him as a traitor; and so, little 
 by little, he entangles himself in the crooked 
 
6o Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 policy, full of prevarications, of expedients, of 
 subterfuges, of one mistake upon another, that 
 leads him to Actium. 
 
 I think I have shown that Antony succumbed 
 in the famous war not because, mad with love, 
 he abandoned the command in the midst of the 
 battle, but because his armies revolted and aban- 
 doned him when they understood what he had 
 not dared declare to them openly : that he meant 
 to dismember the Empire of Rome to create the 
 new Empire of Alexandria. The future Augustus 
 conquered at Actium without effort,! merely be- 
 cause the national sentiment of the soldiery, 
 outraged by the unforeseen revelation of Antony 's 
 treason, turned against the man who wanted to 
 aggrandise Cleopatra at the expense of his own 
 country. 
 
 And then the victorious party, the party of 
 Augustus, created the story of Antony and Cleo- 
 patra that has so entertained posterity ; this story- 
 is but a popular explanation — ^in part imagina- 
 tively exaggerated and fantastic — of the Eastern 
 peril that menaced Rome, of both its political 
 phase and its moral. According to the story that 
 Horace has put into such charming verse, Cleo- 
 patra wished to conquer Italy, to enslave Rome, 
 to destroy the Capitol; but Cleopatra alone could 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 6i 
 
 not have accomplished so difhcult a task ; she must 
 have seduced Antony, made him forget his duty 
 to his wife, to his legitimate children, to the Re- 
 public, the soldiery, his native land, — ^all the 
 duties that Latin morals inculcated into the minds 
 of the great, and that a shameless Egyptian 
 woman, rendered perverse by all the arts of the 
 Orient, had blotted out in his soul; therefore 
 Antony's tragic fate should serve as a solemn 
 warning to distrust the voluptuous seductions, of 
 which Cleopatra symbolised the elegant and fatal 
 depravity. The story was magnified, coloured, dif- 
 fused, not because it was beautiful and romantic, 
 but because it served the interests of the political 
 coterie that gained definite control of the govern- 
 ment on the ruin of Antony. At Actium, the 
 future Augustus did not fight a real war, he only 
 passively watched the power of the adversary 
 go to pieces, destroyed by its own internal con- 
 tradictions. He did not decide to conquer Egypt 
 until the public opinion of Italy, enraged against 
 Antony and Cleopatra, required this vengeance 
 with such insistence that he had to satisfy 
 it. 
 
 If Augustus was not a man too quick in action, 
 he was, instead, keenly intelligent in comprehending 
 the situation created by the catastrophe of Antony 
 
62 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 in Italy, where already, for a decade of years, 
 public spirit, frightened by revolution, was anx- 
 ious to return to the ways of the past, to the 
 historic sources of the national life. Augustus 
 understood that he ought to stand before Italy, 
 disgusted as it was with long-continued dissension 
 and eager to retrace the way of national tradition, 
 as the embodiment of all the virtues his contem- 
 poraries set in opposition to eastern "corruption," 
 • — simplicity, severity of private habits, rigid mono- 
 gamy, the anti-feministic spirit, the purely virile 
 idea of the state. Naturally, the exaltation of 
 these virtues required the portrayal in his rival 
 of Actium, as far as possible, the opposite defects ; 
 therefore the efforts of his friends, like Horace, 
 to colour the story of Antony and Cleopatra, which 
 should magnify to the Italians the idea of the 
 danger from which Augustus had saved them at 
 Actium; which was meant to serve as a bar- 
 rier against the invading Oriental "corruption," 
 that "corruption" the essence of which I have 
 already analysed. 
 
 In a certain sense, the legend of Antony and 
 Cleopatra is chiefly an anti-feminist legend, in- 
 tended to reinforce in the state the power of the 
 masculine principle, to demonstrate how dan- 
 gerous it may be to leave to women the govern- 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 63 
 
 ment of public affairs, or follow their counsel in 
 political business. 
 
 The people believed the legend; posterity has 
 believed it. Two years ago when I published in 
 the Revue de Paris an article in which I demon- 
 strated, by obvious arguments, the incongruities 
 and absurdities of the legend, and tried to retrace 
 through it the half-effaced lines of the truth, every- 
 body was amazed. From one end of Europe to 
 the other, the papers resumed the conclusions 
 of my study as an astounding revelation. An 
 illustrious French statesman, a man of the finest 
 culture in historical study, Joseph Reinach, said 
 to me : 
 
 After your article I have re-read Dion and Plutarch. 
 It is indeed singular that for twenty centuries men 
 have read and reread those pages without any one's 
 realising how confused and absurd their accounts 
 are. 
 
 It seems to be a law of human psychology that 
 almost all historic personages, from Minos to 
 Mazzini, from Judas to Charlotte Corday, from 
 Xerxes to Napoleon, are imaginary personages 5 
 some transfigured into demigods, by admiration 
 and success ; the others debased by hate and failure. 
 In reality, the former were often uglier, the latter 
 more attractive than tradition has pictured them, 
 
64 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 because men in general are neither too good nor 
 too bad, neither too inteUigent nor too stupid. 
 In conclusion, historic tradition is full of deformed 
 caricatures and ideal transfigurations; because, 
 when they are dead, the impression of their politi- 
 cal contemporaries still serves the ends of parties, 
 states, nations, institutions. Can this man exalt 
 in a, people the consciousness of its own power, 
 of its own energy, of its own value? Lo, then 
 they make a god of him, as of Napoleon or Bis- 
 marck. Can this other serve to feed in the mass, 
 odium and scorn of another party, of a government, 
 of an order of things that it is desirable to injure ? 
 Then they make a monster of him, as happened 
 in Rome to Tiberius, in France to Napoleon III, 
 in Italy to all who for one motive or another 
 opposed the unification of Italy. 
 
 It is true that after a time the interests that 
 have coloured certain figures with certain hues and 
 shades disappear; but then the reputation, good 
 or bad, of a personage is already made ; his name 
 is stamped on the memory of posterity with an 
 adjective,' — ^the great, the wise, the wicked, the 
 cruel, the rapacious, — and there is no human force 
 that can dissever name from adjective. Some 
 far-away historian, studying all the documents, 
 examining the sequence of events, will confute 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 65 
 
 the tradition in learned books; but his work not 
 only will not succeed in persuading the ignorant 
 multitude, but must also contend against the 
 multiplied objections offered by the instinctive 
 incredulity of people of culture. 
 
 You will say to me, "What is the use of writing 
 history? Why spend so much effort to correct 
 the errors in which people will persist just as if 
 the histories were never written?" I reply that 
 I do not believe that the office of history is to 
 give to men who have guided the great human 
 events a posthumous justice. It is already work 
 serious enough for every generation to give a little 
 justice to the living, rather than occupy itself 
 rendering it to the dead, who indeed, in contra- 
 distinction from the living, have no need of it. 
 The study of history, the rectification of stories 
 of the past, ought to serve another and practical 
 end; that is, train the men who govern nations 
 to discern more clearly than may be possible 
 from their own environment the truth underlying 
 the legends. As I have already said, passions, 
 interests, present historic personages in a thousand 
 forms when they are alive, transfiguring not only 
 the persons themselves, but events the most di- 
 verse, the character of institutions, the conditions 
 of nations. 
 5 
 
66 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 It is generally believed that legends are found 
 only at the dawn of history, in the poetic period: 
 that is a great mistake; the legend — ^the legend 
 that deceives, that deforms, that misdirects' — 
 is everywhere, in all ages, in the present as in 
 the past — in the present even more than in the 
 past, because it is the consequence of certain 
 universal forms of thought and of sentiment. 
 To-day, just as ten or twenty centuries ago, in- 
 terests and passions dominate events, alter them 
 and distort them, creating about them veritable 
 romances, more or less probable. The present, 
 which appears to all to be the same reahty, is 
 instead, for most people, only a huge legend, 
 traversed by contemporaries stirred by the most 
 widely differing sentiments. 
 
 However the mass may content itself with this 
 legend, throbbing with hate and love, with hope 
 and the fear of its own self -created phantoms, 
 those who guide and govern the masses ought to 
 try to divine the truth, as far as they can. A 
 great man of state is distinguished from a me- 
 diocre by his greater ability to divine the real 
 in his world of action beneath its superfice of 
 confused legends; by his greater ability to dis- 
 criminate in everything what is true from what 
 is merely apparently true, in the prestige of states 
 
Antony and Cleopatra 67 
 
 and institutions, in the forces of parties, in the 
 energy attributed to certain men, in the purposes 
 claimed by parties and men, often different from 
 their real designs. To do that, some natural 
 disposition is necessary, a liveliness of intuition 
 that must come with birth; but this faculty can 
 be refined and trained by a practical knowledge 
 of men, by experience in things, and by the study 
 of history. In the ages dead, when the interests 
 that created their legends have disappeared, we 
 can discover how those great popular delusions, 
 which are one of the greatest forces of history, 
 are made and how they work. We may thus 
 fortify the spirit to withstand the cheating illu- 
 sions that surround us, coming from every part 
 of the vast modem world, in which so many in- 
 terests dispute dominion over thoughts and will. 
 In this sense alone, I believe that history may 
 teach, not the multitude, which will never learn 
 anything from it, but, impelled by the same 
 passions, will always repeat the same errors and 
 the same foolishnesses; but the chosen few, who, 
 charged with directing the game of history, have 
 concern in knowing as well as they can its inner 
 law. Taken in this way, history may be a great 
 teacher, in its every page, every line, and the 
 study of the legend of Antony and Cleopatra may 
 
68 Antony and Cleopatra 
 
 itself even serve to prepare the spirit of a diplomat, 
 who must treat between state and state the com- 
 plicated economic and political affairs of the 
 modem world. And so, in conclusion, history 
 and life interchange mutual services; life teaches 
 history, and history, life; observing the present, 
 we help ourselves to know the past, and from the 
 study of the past we can return to our present 
 the better tempered and prepared to observe and 
 comprehend it. In present and in past, history 
 can form a kind of wisdom set apart, in a certain 
 sense aristocratic, above what the masses know, 
 at least as to the universal laws that govern the 
 life of nations. 
 
The Development of Gaul 
 
 69 
 
TN estimating distant historical events, one is 
 * often the victim of an error of perspective ; that 
 is, one is disposed to consider as the outcome of a 
 pre-established plan of human wisdom what is the 
 final result, quite unforeseen, of causes that acted 
 beyond the foresight of contemporaries. At the 
 distance of centuries, turning back to consider the 
 past, we can easily find out that the efforts of one 
 or two generations have produced certain effects 
 on the actual condition of the world ; and then we 
 conclude that those generations meant to reach 
 that result. On the contrary, men almost always 
 face the future proposing to themselves impossible 
 ends; notwithstanding which, their efforts, ac- 
 cumulating, destroying, interweaving, bring into 
 being consequences that no one had foreseen or 
 planned, the novelty or importance of which often 
 only future generations realise. Columbus, who, 
 fixed in the idea of reaching India by sailing 
 west, finds America on his way and does not 
 recognise it at once but is persuaded that he has 
 landed in India, symbolises the lot of man in 
 history. 
 
 71 
 
72 The Development of Gaul 
 
 Of this phenomenon, which is to me a funda- 
 mental law of history, there is a classic example 
 in the story of Rome : the conquest of Gaul. With- 
 out doubt, one of the greatest works of Rome 
 was the conquest and Romanisation of Gaul: 
 indeed that conquest and Romanisation of Gaul 
 is the beginning of European civilisation; for 
 before the Graeco-Latin civilisation reached the 
 Rhine over the ways opened by the Roman sword, 
 the continent of Europe had centres of civilisation 
 on the coast or in its projecting extremities, like 
 Italy, B^tica, Narbonensis; but the interior was 
 still entirely in the power of a turbulent and rest- 
 less barbarism, like the African continent to-day. 
 Moreover, what Rome created in Asia and Africa 
 was almost entirely destroyed by ages following; 
 on the contrary, Rome yet lives in France, to 
 which it gave its language, its spirit, and the 
 traditions of its thought. Exactly for this reason 
 it is particularly important to explain how such 
 an outcome was brought about, and by what 
 historic forces. From the propensity to consider 
 every great historical event as wholly a master- 
 piece of human genius, many historians have 
 attributed also this accomplishment to a prodi- 
 gious, well-nigh divine wisdom on the part of the 
 Romans, and Julius Cassar is regarded as a demi- 
 
The Development of Gaul 73 
 
 god who had fixed his gaze upon the far, far 
 distant future. However, it is not difficult, 
 studying the ancient documents with critical 
 spirit, to persuade oneself that even if Caesar 
 was a man of genius, he was not a god; that from 
 beginning to end, the real story of the conquest 
 of Gaul is very different from the commonly 
 accepted version. 
 
 I hope to demonstrate that Caesar threw himself 
 into the midst of Gallic affairs, impelled by slight 
 incidents of internal politics, not only without 
 giving any thought whatever to the future destiny 
 of Gaul, but without even knowing well the con- 
 ditions existing there. Gaul was then for all 
 Romans ja barbarous region, poor, gloomy, full 
 of swamps and forests in which there would be 
 much fighting and little booty : no one was think- 
 ing then of having Roman territory cross the 
 Alps; everyone was infatuated by the story of 
 Alexander the Great, dreaming only of conquering 
 like him all the rich and civilised Orient ; everyone, 
 even C^sar. Only a sequence of political acci- 
 dents pushed him in spite of himself into Gaul. 
 
 In 62 B.C., Pompey had returned from the 
 Orient, where he had finished the conquest of 
 Pontus, begun by Lucullus, and annexed Syria. 
 On his return, the conservative party, irritated 
 
74 The Development of Gaul 
 
 against him because he had gone over to the 
 opposite side, and having been given something 
 to think of by the prestige that the policy of 
 expansion was winning for the popular party, 
 had succeeded by many intrigues in keeping the 
 Senate from ratifying what he had done in the 
 East. This internal struggle closed the Orient 
 for several years to the adventurous initiatives 
 of the political imperialists; for as long as the 
 adminstration of Pompey remained unapproved, 
 it was impossible to think of undertaking new 
 enterprises or conquests in Asia and Africa; and 
 therefore, of necessity, Roman politics, burning 
 for conquest and adventure, had to turn to another 
 part of Europe. 
 
 The letters of Cicero prove to us that Caesar 
 was not the first to think that Rome, having its 
 hands tied for the moment in the East, ought to 
 interfere in the affairs of Gaul. The man who 
 first had the idea of a Gallic policy was Quintus 
 Metellus Celerus, husband of the famous Clodia, 
 and consul the year before C^sar. Taking ad- 
 vantage of certain disturbances arisen in Gaul 
 from the constant wars between the differing 
 parts, Metellus had persuaded the Senate to au- 
 thorise him to make war on the Helvetians. At 
 the beginning of the year 59, that is, the year in 
 
The Development of Gaul 75 
 
 which Caesaf was consul, Metellus was already 
 preparing to depart for the war in Gaul, when 
 suddenly he died; and then Caesar, profiting by 
 the interest in Rome for Gallic affairs, had the 
 mission previously entrusted to Metellus given 
 to himself and took up both Metellus 's office 
 and his plan. Here you see at the beginning of 
 this story the first accident,' — the death of Metel- 
 lus. An historian curious of nice and unanswer- 
 able questions might ask himself what would 
 have been the history of the world if Metellus 
 had not died. Certainly Rome would have been 
 occupied with Gallic concerns a year sooner and 
 by a different man; Csesar would probably have 
 had to seek elsewhere a brilliant proconsulship 
 and things Gallic would have for ever escaped 
 his energy. 
 
 However it be, charged with the affairs of Gaul 
 accidentally and unexpectedly, Csesar went there 
 without well knowing the condition of it, and, in 
 fact, as I think I proved in a long appendix pub- 
 lished in the French and English editions of my 
 work, he began his Gallic policy with a serious 
 mistake; that is, attacking the Helvetians. A 
 superior mind, C^sar was not long in finding his 
 bearings in the midst of the tremendous confusion 
 he found in Gaul; but for this, there is no need 
 
76 The Development of Gaul 
 
 to think that he earned out in the Gallic policy 
 vast schemes, long meditated: he worked, in- 
 stead, as the uncertain changes of Roman poli- 
 tics imposed. I believe that there is but one 
 way to understand and reasonably explain the 
 policy pursued by Cassar in Gaul, his sudden 
 moves, his zigzags, his audacities, his mistakes; 
 that is, to study it from Rome, to keep always 
 in mind the internal changes, the party struggle, 
 in which he was involved at Rome. In short, 
 Gaul was for Csesar only a means to operate 
 on the internal politics of Rome, of which he 
 made use from day to day, as the immediate 
 interest of the passing hour seemed to require. 
 
 I cite a single example, but the most signil&cant. 
 Caesar declared Gaul a Roman province and 
 annexed it to the Empire toward the end of 57 e.g. ; 
 that is, at the end of his second year as proconsul, 
 unexpectedly, with no warning act to intimate 
 such vigorous intent, — a surprise; and why? 
 Look to Rome and you will understand. In 57 
 B.C., the democratic party, demoralised by dis- 
 cords, upset by the popular agitation to recall 
 Cicero from unjust exile, discredited by scandals, 
 especially the Egyptian scandals, seemed on 
 the point of going to pieces. Caesar understood 
 that there was but one way to stop this ruin: to 
 
The Development of Gaul 77 
 
 stun public opinion and all Italy with some highly 
 audacious surprise. The surprise was the annex- 
 ation of Gaul. Declaring Gaul a Roman province 
 after the victory over the Belgi, he convinced 
 Rome that he had in two years overcome all Gallic 
 adversaries. And so, the conquest of Gaul — ^this 
 event that was to open a new era, this event, the 
 effects of which still endure — ^was, at the beginning 
 in the mind that conceived and executed it, no- 
 thing but a bold political expedient in behalf of a 
 party, to solve a situation compromised by mani- 
 fold errors. 
 
 But you will ask me: how from so tiny a seed 
 could ever grow so mighty a tree, covering with its 
 branches so much of the earth ? You know that at 
 the close of the proconsulship in Gaul, there breaks 
 out a great civil war; this lasts, with brief inter- 
 ruptions and pauses, until the battle of Actium. 
 Only toward 30 B.C., is the tempest lulled, and 
 during this time Gaul seems almost to disappear ; 
 the ancient writers hardly mention it, except 
 from time to time for a moment to let us know 
 that some unimportant revolt broke out, now 
 here, now there, in the vast territory; that this or 
 that general was sent to repress it. 
 
 The civil wars ended, the government of Rome 
 turns its attention to the provinces anew, but for 
 
78 The Development of Gaul 
 
 another reason. Saint Jerome tells us that in 25 
 B.C., Augustus increased the tribute from the 
 Gauls : we find no difficulty in getting at the reason 
 of this fact. The thing most urgent after the re- 
 establishment of peace was the re-arrangement 
 of finance; that signified then, as always, an in- 
 crease of imposts : but more could not be extorted 
 from the Oriental provinces, already exhausted 
 by so many wars and plunderings; therefore the 
 idea to draw greater revenues from the European 
 provinces of recent conquest, particularly from 
 Gaul, which until then had paid so little. So you 
 see a-forging one link after another in the chain: 
 Csesar for a political interest conquers Gaulj 
 thirty years afterward Augustus goes there to 
 seek new revenues for his balance-sheet; thence- 
 forward there are always immediate needs that 
 urge Roman politics into Gallic affairs: and so 
 it is that little by little Roman politics become 
 permanently involved, by a kind of concatenation, 
 not by deliberate plan. 
 
 We can easily follow the process. Augustus 
 had left in Gaul to exact the new tribute, a former 
 slave of Csesar's, afterward liberated, — a Gaul 
 or German whom Caesar had captured as a child 
 in one of his expeditions and later freed, because 
 of his consummate administrative ability. It 
 
The Development of Gaul 79 
 
 appears, however, that, for the Gauls at least, 
 this ability was even too great. In a curious chap- 
 ter Dion tells us that Licinius, this freedman, 
 uniting the avarice of a barbarian to the pretences 
 of a Roman, beat down everyone that seemed 
 greater than he; oppressed all those who seemed 
 to have more power; extorted enormous sums 
 from all, were they to fill out the dues of his office, 
 or to enrich himself and his family. His rascaHty 
 was so stupendous that since the Gauls paid cer- 
 tain taxes every month, he increased to fourteen 
 the number of the months, declaring that Decem- 
 ber, the last, was only the tenth; consequently 
 it was necessary to count two more, one called 
 Undecember and another, Duodecember. 
 
 I would not guarantee this story true, since, 
 when there is introduced into a nation a new 
 and more burdensome system of taxes, there are 
 always set in circulation tales of this kind about 
 the rapacity of the persons charged with collecting 
 them: but true or false, the tale shows that the 
 Gauls were much irritated by the new tribute; 
 indeed this irritation increased so much that in 
 the winter from the year 15 till the year 14 b.c, 
 Augustus, having to remain in Gaul on account 
 of certain serious complications, arisen in Ger- 
 many, was obliged to give his attention to it 
 
8o The Development of Gaul 
 
 during his stay. The prominent men of Gaul 
 presented vigorous complaints to him against 
 Licinius and his administration. Then there 
 occurred an episode that, recounted three cent- 
 uries later with a certain naivete by Dion Cassius, 
 has been overlooked by the historians, but which 
 seems to me to be of prime interest in the history 
 of the Latin world. Dion writes : 
 
 Augustus, not able to avoid blaming Licinius for 
 the many denunciations and revelations of the Gallic 
 chiefs, sought in other things to excuse him; he pre- 
 tended not to know certain facts, made believe not 
 to accept others, being ashamed to have placed such 
 a procurator in Gaul. Licinius, however, extricated 
 himself from the danger by a decidedly original expe- 
 dient. When he realised that Augustus was displeased 
 and that he was running great risk of being punished, 
 he conducted that Prince to his house, and showing 
 him his numerous treasuries full of gold and silver, 
 enormous piles of objects made of precious metals, 
 said: — "My lord, only for your good and that of the 
 Romans have I amassed all these riches. I feared 
 that the natives, fortified by such wealth, might 
 revolt, if I left them to them: therefore I have placed 
 them in safe-keeping for you and I give them to you. " 
 So, by his pretext that he had thus broken the power 
 of the barbarians for the sake of Augustus, Licinius 
 saved himself from danger. 
 
The Development of Gaul 8i 
 
 This incident has without doubt the smack of 
 legend. Ought we therefore to conclude that it is 
 wholly invented? No, because in history the dis- 
 tortions of the truth are much more numerous than 
 are inventions. This page of Dion is important. 
 It preserves for us, presented in a dramatic scene 
 between Augustus and Licinius, the record of a 
 very serious dispute carried on between the notable 
 men of Gaul and Licinius, in the presence of Au- 
 gustus. The Gauls complain of paying too many 
 imposts: Licinius replies that Gaul is very richf 
 that it grows rich quickly and therefore it ought 
 to pay as much as is demanded of it, and more. 
 Not only did the freedman show rooms full of 
 gold and silver to his lord; he showed him the 
 great economic progress of Gaul, its marvellous 
 future, the immense wealth concealed in its soil 
 and in the genius of its inhabitants. In other 
 words, this chapter of Dion makes us conclude 
 that Rome — ^that is, the small oligarchy that was 
 directing its politics — ^realised that the Gaul con- 
 quered by Caesar, the Gaul that had always been 
 considered as a country cold and sterile, was 
 instead a magnificent province, naturally rich, 
 from which they might get enormous treasure. 
 This discovery was made in the winter of 15-14 
 B.C.; that is, forty -three years after Caesar had 
 
82 The Development of Gaul 
 
 added the province to the Empire; forty-three 
 years after they had possessed without knowing 
 what they possessed, hke some grand seigneur who 
 unwittingly holds among the common things of 
 his patrimony some priceless object, the value of 
 which only an accident on a sudden reveals. 
 
 This chapter of Dion allows us also to affirm 
 that he who first realised the value of Gaul and 
 opened the eyes of Augustus, was no great person- 
 age of the Roman aristocracy whose names are 
 written in such lofty characters on the pages of 
 history, whose images are yet found in marble 
 and bronze among the museums of Europe; no 
 one of those who ruled the Empire and therefore 
 according to reason and justice had the respon- 
 sibility of governing it well: it was, instead, an 
 obscure freedman, whose ability the masters of 
 the Empire scorned to exploit except as to-day 
 a peasant uses the forces of his ox, hardly deigning 
 to look at him and yet deeming all his labour but 
 the owner 's natural right. 
 
 So stands the story. The Gallic freedman 
 observed, and understood, and was forgotten; 
 posterity, instead, has had to wonder over the 
 profound wisdom of the Roman aristocrat, who 
 understood nothing. Moreover, if in 14 B.C. 
 Licinius had to make an effort to persuade the 
 
The Development of Gaul 83 
 
 surprised and diffident Augustus that Gaul was a 
 province of great future, it is clear that Gaul 
 must already have begun to grow rich by itself 
 without the Roman government's having done 
 anything to promote its progress. 
 
 From what hidden sources sprang forth this 
 new wealth of Gaul? All the documents that we 
 possess authorise us to respond that Gaul — to 
 begin from the time of Augustus — was able to 
 grow rich quickly, because the events following 
 the Roman conquest turned and disposed the 
 general conditions of the Empire in its favour. 
 Gaul then, as France now, was endowed with 
 several requisites essential to its becoming a nation 
 of great economic development: a land very fer- 
 tile; a population dense for the times, intelligent, 
 wide-awake, active; a climate that, even though 
 it seemed to Greeks and Romans cold and foggy, 
 was better suited to intense activity than the 
 warm and sunny climate of the South ; and finally, 
 ■ — SL supreme advantage in ancient civilisation,- — 
 it was everywhere intersected, as by a network 
 of canals, by navigable rivers. In ancient times 
 transport by land was very expensive ; water was 
 the natural and economic vehicle of commerce; 
 therefore civilisation was able to enter with com- 
 merce into the interior of continents only by way 
 
84 The Development of Gaul 
 
 of the rivers, which, as one might say, were to a 
 certain extent the railroads of the ancient world. 
 
 To these advantageous conditions, which, being 
 physical, existed before the Roman conquest, 
 the conquest added some others: it broke down 
 the political barrier that previously cut off these 
 convenient means of penetration, the rivers; it 
 suppressed the wars between the Gallic tribes, 
 the privileges, the tyrannies, the tolls, the mono- 
 polies ; it saved the enormous resources that were 
 previously wasted in these constant drains ; it put 
 again the hoe, the spade, the tools of the artisan, 
 into hands that had before been wielding the sword ; 
 and finally, it consolidated (and this was perhaps 
 the most important effect) the jurisdiction of 
 property. When Caesar invaded Gaul, the great 
 landowners still cultivated cereals and textile 
 plants but little ; they put the greater part of their 
 fortune into cattle, exactly because in that regime 
 of continual war and revolution lands easily kept 
 changing proprietors. Futhermore, the more fre- 
 quent contact with Rome acquainted the Gauls 
 with Roman agriculture and its abler methods, 
 with Latin life and its studied order. 
 
 By the combination of all these causes, popula- 
 tion and production increased rapidly. The gain 
 in population was so considerable that the ancients 
 
The Development of Gaul 85 
 
 themselves noticed it. Strabo (Bk. 4, ch. i, §2) 
 observes that the GaUic women are fecund 
 mothers and excellent nurses. With the popula- 
 tion, wealth increased on all sides, in agriculture 
 as in industry and in trade. 
 
 The new and more stable jurisdiction of the 
 landed proprietary generated another most im- 
 portant effect ; it promoted rapidly the cultivation 
 of cereals and textile plants, of wheat and flax. 
 "All Gaul produces much wheat," says Strabo, 
 and we read his notice without surprise, because 
 we know that France is, even to-day, the region 
 of Europe most fertile in cereals. There is no 
 reason to suppose that it must have been barren 
 of them twenty centuries ago. Other documen- 
 tary evidence, particularly inscriptions, confirms 
 Strabo, informing us that, especially in the second 
 century, Rome bought the customary grain to 
 feed the metropolis not only in Egypt, but also in 
 Gaul. In short, Gaul seems to have been the sole 
 region of Europe fertile enough to be able to export 
 grain, to have been for Rome a kind of Canada 
 or Middle West of the time, set not beyond oceans 
 but beyond the Alps. 
 
 The cultivation of flax, to the ancient world 
 what cotton is to-day, progressed rapidly in Gaul 
 along with that of wheat, so that Gaul was early 
 
86 The Development of Gaul 
 
 able to rival Egypt also in this respect. That 
 Gaul and Egypt should have so much in common 
 at the same time, was something so interesting 
 and seemed so strange that Pliny himself wrote : 
 
 Flax is sowed only in sandy places and after a 
 single ploughing. Perhaps Egypt may be pardoned 
 for sowing it, because with it she buys the merchan- 
 dise of India and Arabia. But, look you! — even 
 Gaul is famous for this plant. What matters it, if 
 huge mountains shut away the sea; if on the ocean 
 side it has for confines what is called emptiness? Not- 
 withstanding that, Gaul cultivates flax like Egypt: 
 the Cadurci, the Caleti, the Ruteni, the Biturigi, the 
 Morini, who are considered tribes of the ends of the 
 earth . . . but what am I saying? All Gaul 
 makes sails, — till the enemies beyond the Rhine 
 imitate them, and the linen is more beautiful to the 
 eyes than are their women. 
 
 These descriptions show Gaul to be one of the 
 new countries, like the Argentine Republic or the 
 United States, in which the land has still almost 
 its natural pristine fecundity and brings forth a 
 marvellous abundance of plants that clothe and 
 nourish man. We know that in Gaul under the 
 Empire there were immense fortunes in land in 
 face of which the fortunes of wealthy Italian pro- 
 prietors shrink Hke the fortunes of Europe when 
 
The Development of Gaul 87 
 
 compared with the great ranch fortunes of the 
 Argentine Republic or the United States. Twenty- 
 years ago they began to excavate in France the 
 ruins of the great Gallo-Roman villas: these are 
 constructed on the plan of the Italian villa, decor- 
 ated in the same way, but are much larger, more 
 sumptuous, more sightly; one feels in them the 
 pride of a new people which has adopted the Latin 
 civilisation, but has infused into that, derived 
 from the wealth of their land, a spirit of grandeur 
 and of luxury that poorer and older Latins did 
 not know, exactly as to-day the Americans infuse 
 a spirit of greater magnitude and boldness into 
 so many things that they take from timid, old 
 Europe. Perhaps there was also in this Gallic 
 luxury, as in the American, a bit of ostentation, 
 intended to humiliate the masters remaining 
 poorer and more modest. 
 
 But Gaul was a nation not only rich in fertilest 
 agriculture; side by side with that, progressed 
 its industry. This, according to my notion, is 
 one of the vital points in ancient history. Under 
 the Roman domination, Gaul was not restricted to 
 the better cultivation of its productive soil; but 
 alone among the peoples of the Occident, became, 
 as we might now say, an industrial nation, that 
 manufactured not only by and for itself, but like 
 
88 The Development of Gaul 
 
 Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, sold also to other peoples 
 of the Empire and outside of its own boundaries ; 
 in a word, exported. The more frequent contact 
 with the Orient better acquainted the Gauls with 
 the beautiful objects made by the artisans of Lao- 
 dicea, of Tyre, of Sidon; and the clever genius 
 of the Celt, always apt in industry, drew from 
 them incentive to create a Gallic industry, partly 
 imitative, partly original, and to seek a large 
 clienMe for these industries in Italy, in Spain, be- 
 yond the Rhine, among the Germans, in the Dan- 
 ube provinces. This is proved by a number of 
 important passages in Pliny, confirmed by inscrip- 
 tions and archaeological discoveries. 
 
 Pliny has already told us that the Gauls manu- 
 factured many linen sails ; we know also that they 
 made not only rough sails, but also fine linen for 
 clothing, which had a wide market. There have 
 been found in the Orient numerous fragments of 
 an inscription containing the famous edict of 
 Diocletian on maximum sale prices allowed, an 
 inscription of value to us for its nomenclature of 
 ancient fabrics. In this nomenclature is mentioned 
 the birrus of Laodicea, an imitation of the btrrus of 
 the Nervii, which was a very fine linen cloth, worn 
 by ladies of fashion. Laodicea was one of the 
 most ancient centres of Oriental textile fabrics j 
 
The Development of Gaul 89 
 
 the Nervii were one of the most remote of the 
 Gallic peoples, living — ^the coincidence is note- 
 worthy' — about where Flanders is now. If at 
 Laodicea they made at the end of the third cen- 
 tury an imitation of Nervian linen, that means 
 that the Nervii had succeeded in manufacturing 
 and finding market for cloth so desirable as to 
 rouse the Laodiceans, competing for trade, to 
 imitate it. What proof more persuasive that dur- 
 ing the early centuries of the Empire the Gauls 
 greatly improved their industries and widened 
 their markets ? 
 
 They had mastered weaving, but they did not 
 stop there ; they invented new methods of dyeing, 
 using vegetable dyes instead of the customary 
 animal colours of the Orient. Pliny says : 
 
 The Gaul imitates with herbs all colours, including 
 Tyrian purple; they do not seek the mollusk on the 
 sea bottom; they run no risk of being devoured by 
 sea monsters ; they do not exploit the anchorless deep 
 to multiply the attractions of the courtesan, or to 
 increase the powers of the seducer of another's wife. 
 They gather the herbs like cereals, standing on the 
 dry ground ; although the colour that they derive does 
 not bear washing. Luxury could thus be gratified 
 with greater show at the cost of fewer dangers. 
 
 It is clear, then, according to PHny, at one time, 
 
go The Development of Gaul 
 
 it was believed that the competition of Gallic 
 dyers might have ruined the Oriental, and would 
 have done so, had the tenacity of their vegetable 
 colouring equalled its beauty. In another passage 
 Pliny tells us that these Gallic stuffs were used 
 especially by the slaves and the populace. 
 
 The wool industry made no less progress in 
 Gaul than weaving and dyeing. From numerous 
 passages in Juvenal and Martial it appears that 
 the woollen clothing worn by the populace of 
 Rome in the second century was woven in Gaul, 
 particularly in the districts to-day known as Arras, 
 Langres, Saintonge. Pliny attributes to the Gauls 
 the invention of a wool, that, soaked in acid, 
 became incombustible, and was used to make 
 mattresses. 
 
 Glass-making was another art carried from the 
 East across the Mediterranean into Gaul. Still 
 another industry, metallurgy, after weaving, con- 
 tributed greatly to enrich Gaul. Undoubtedly even 
 before the Roman conquest, Gaul worked gold 
 mines; it seems, however, that silver mines re- 
 mained untouched until about the time of Augus- 
 tus. At any rate, the discovery of some deposits 
 of gold and silver then gave a spur to several 
 flourishing industries ; jewelry -making, and — 
 an original Gallic industry of much importance — 
 
The Development of Gaul 91 
 
 silver-plating and tinning. Here is another extract 
 from Pliny, from which you will see that in those 
 times they already made in France **Christofle" 
 silver-plate: 
 
 They cover [writes Pliny] the copper with tin in 
 such a way that it is difficult to distinguish it from 
 silver. It is a Gallic invention. Later they began to 
 do the same thing with silver, silver-plating especially 
 the ornaments of horses and carriages. The merit 
 of the invention belongs to the Biturigi, and the 
 industry was developed in the city of Alesia. After 
 the same fashion there has been spread everywhere 
 a foolish profusion of objects not only silver-, but 
 gold-plated. All that is called cultus, elegance! 
 
 We might almost say that Gallic industry did to 
 the old industries of the ancient world what Ger- 
 man wares have done compared with older and 
 more aristocratic products of France, of England, 
 popularising objects of luxury for the many and 
 the merely well-to-do. 
 
 Finally, if any one hesitated to trust fully these 
 very important passages in Pliny, he would be 
 quite convinced by reading the great work of 
 Dechelette. This author, studying with Carthu- 
 sian patience and the ablest critical acumen the 
 Gallic ceramics to be found scattered among the 
 
92 The Development of Gaul 
 
 museums, has demonstrated most commendably 
 that in the first century of the Empire many manu- 
 factories of ceramics were opened and flourished 
 in Gaul, especially in the valley of the AUier, and 
 that they sold their vases in Spain, in the Danube 
 regions, to the Germans, and in Italy. 
 
 Dechelette has proved that many ceramics 
 found among the ruins of Pompeii, now admired 
 in the museums of Pompeii and Naples, were made 
 in Gaul, — discoveries most noteworthy, which, in 
 connection with the extracts from Pliny, disclose 
 in essence that real Roman Gaul whose sump- 
 tuous relics but half tell the tale of its wealth. 
 
 This tremendous development of Gaul was 
 without doubt an effect of the Roman conquest 5 
 but an effect that neither C^sar, nor any other 
 man of his times had foreseen or willed, but which 
 Augustus was first to recognise in the winter of 
 15-14 B.C., and to which, astute man that he was, 
 he gave heed as he ought ; that is, not as due his own 
 merit, but as an unexpected piece of good fortune. 
 I have already said that one of the greatest cares 
 of Augustus, as soon as the civil wars were finished, 
 was to reorganise the finances of the Empire ; that 
 to find new entries for the treasury, he had turned 
 his attention in 27 B.C. to the province conquered 
 A by his father, regarding it merely from the com- 
 
The Development of Gaul 93 
 
 mon point of view, as poor and of little worth 
 like the other European territories. Then, at a 
 stroke, he realised that that territory so lightly 
 valued, was producing grain like Egypt, linen like 
 Egypt; that the arts of civilisation for which 
 Egypt was so rich and famous were beginning to 
 prosper there! Augustus was not the man to let 
 slip so tremendous a piece of good luck. Until 
 then he had hesitated, like one who seeks his wayi 
 in that winter from 15-14 B.C., he found finally 
 the grand climax of his career, to make Gaul the 
 Egypt of the West, the province of the greatest 
 revenues in Europe. From that time on to the end 
 of his life, he did not move from Europe ; he lived 
 between Italy and Gaul. Like him, Tiberius, 
 Drusus, all the men of his family, devoted all 
 their efforts to Gaul, to consolidating Roman 
 dominion there, to advancing its progress, to 
 increasing the revenues, to making it actually 
 the Occidental Egypt. From Velleius we learn 
 that under Tiberius Gaul rendered to the Empire 
 as much as did Egypt, and that Gaul and Egypt 
 were considered alike the two richest imperial 
 provinces. 
 
 As a political interest had at first impelled 
 Caesar to annex Gaul, an immediate financial 
 interest urged Augustus to continue the work, 
 
94 The Development of Gaul 
 
 to take care of the new province. Then the his- 
 toric law that I have already enunciated to you, 
 the law by which the efforts of men result far 
 differently from that which they had intended, 
 was verified anew by Augustus also, and in a new 
 form. He had created his Gallic policy to aug- 
 ment the revenues of the Empire ; the consequences 
 of this fiscal policy, necessity-inspired, were 
 greater than he and his friends ever dreamed. 
 The winter of 15-14 b.c. is a notable date in the 
 story of Latin civilisation, for then the destiny 
 of the Empire was irrevocably settled ; the Roman 
 Empire will be made up of two parts, the Oriental 
 and the Occidental, each part sufficiently strong 
 to withstand being overcome by the other; it 
 will be neither an Asiatic, nor a Celtic-Latin, but 
 a mixed Empire: between both parts, Italy will 
 rule for two centuries more, and Rome, an im- 
 mense city, at once Oriental and Latin, will keep 
 the metropolitan crown won from the enfeebled 
 East, and dominate the immature barbarian West. 
 Speaking of Cleopatra, I have shown you how 
 great was the Oriental peril that threatened in 
 the last century of the Republic to wipe out Rome. 
 What miraculous force saved it? Gaul. Suppose 
 that the army of Cassar had been exterminated 
 at Alesia; suppose that Rome, discouraged, had 
 
The Development of Gaul 95 
 
 abandoned its Gallic enterprise as it had done 
 with Persia, after the disaster of Crassus and 
 the failure of Antony; or suppose that Gaul had 
 been a poor province, sterile and unpopulous, 
 like many a Danube district ; Rome could not have 
 held out long as the seat of imperial government, 
 just as to-day the capital of the Russian Empire 
 could not maintain itself at Vladivostok or Harbin. 
 It would have been necessary to move the metro- 
 polis to a richer and more populous region. That 
 Gaul grew rich and was Romanised, changed the 
 state of things. When Rome possessed beyond 
 the Alps in Europe a province as large and as 
 full of resources as Egypt; when there was the 
 same interest in defending it as in defending Egypt, 
 Italy was well placed to govern both. The Egypt 
 of the Occident counterbalanced the Egypt of 
 the Orient, and Rome, half way between, was the 
 natural and necessary metropolis of the wide- 
 spread Empire. Gaul alone, revived, so to speak, 
 the Empire in the West and prevented the Euro- 
 pean provinces' — even Italy itself' — from becom- 
 ing dead limbs safely amputable from the Oriental 
 body. Gaul upheld Italy and Rome in Europe 
 for three centuries longer; Gaul stopped it on 
 the way to the Asiatic conquests run through by 
 Alexander. Had it not been for Gaul, Asia Minor, 
 
96 The Development of Gaul 
 
 Syria, and Egypt would have formed the real 
 Empire of Rome, and Italy would have been lost 
 in it: without Gaul, the Orientalised Empire 
 would have tried to conquer Persia and probably 
 succeeded in doing so, abandoning the poor and 
 unproductive lands of the untamed Occident. 
 In short, Gaul created in the Roman Empire 
 that duality between East and West which gives 
 shape to all the history of our civilisation ; it kept 
 the artificial form of the Empire, circular about 
 an island sea; it inspired the Empire with that 
 double self-contradictory spirit, Latin and Orien- 
 tal, at once its strength and its weakness. 
 
 Next time I will show you the continuation of 
 this struggle of two minds, in a characteristic 
 episode, the story of the Emperor Nero. Now, 
 before closing, let me set before you briefly some 
 general considerations drawn from the history 
 of Roman Gaul which are applicable to universal 
 history. 
 
 From what I have told you, it follows that the 
 fortunes of peoples and states depend in part on 
 what might be called the historic situation of 
 every age, the situation that is created by the 
 general state of the world in every successive epoch 
 and which no people or state can mould at its 
 own pleasure. Without doubt, a nation will never 
 
The Development of Gaul 97 
 
 conquer a noteworthy greatness if the men that 
 compose it fail of a certain culture, a certain energy, 
 a social morale sufficiently vigorous; but though 
 these qualities are necessary, they are not equally 
 productive in all periods, but serve more or less, 
 in different periods, according as general circum- 
 stances are disposed about a people. Gaul was 
 fertile, and its people possessed before the con- 
 quest the qualities that they displayed later: 
 and yet, as long as Gaul remained apart from the 
 Empire, without continuous and numerous com- 
 munications with the vast Mediterranean world; 
 as long as it was split into so many petty rival 
 states, occupied in serious wars against the Ger- 
 manic tribes, its fertility remained hidden in the 
 earth, and the ability of its inhabitants dissipated 
 itself in devastating wars, instead of spending 
 itself in fruitful effort. All that changed, and 
 without any one's foresight or intent, when the 
 Roman policy, urged by the internal forces that 
 stirred the Republic, had destroyed that old order 
 of things. 
 
 The ancients understood that peoples, like in- 
 dividual men, can regulate their destiny only in 
 part; that about us, above us, are forces complex 
 and obscure, which we can hardly comprehend, 
 which invest us, seize us, impel us whither we 
 7 
 
98 The Development of Gaul 
 
 had not thought to go, now to shipwreck on the 
 rocks of misadventure, now to the discovery of 
 islands of happiness, or to find, Hke Columbus, 
 an America on the way to India. The Greeks 
 called this power ; the Latins, Fortuna, and deified 
 it ; erected temples and made sacrifices to it ; dedi- 
 cated to it a cult, of which Augustus was a devo- 
 tee, and which contained more secret wisdom of 
 life than all the superb theories on human des- 
 tiny conceived by European genius in the delirium 
 of this quarter-hour of measureless might in which 
 we are living. No, man is not the voluntary 
 artificer of his whole destiny ; fortune and misfor- 
 tune, triumph and catastrophe, are never entirely 
 proportioned to personal merit or blame; every 
 generation finds the world organised in a certain 
 order of interests, forces, traditions, relations, 
 and as it enjoys the good that preceding genera- 
 tions have accomplished, so in part it expiates 
 the errors they have committed; as it draws ad- 
 vantage from beneficent forces acting outside of 
 it and independent of its merit, so it suffers from 
 the sinister forces that it finds' — even though 
 blameless itself' — acting through the great mass 
 of the world, among men and their works. From 
 this relation to the unseen follows a rule of wis- 
 dom that modem men, full of unbounded pride, 
 
The Development of Gaul 99 
 
 and persuaded that they are the beginning and 
 end of the universe, too often forget: we must 
 indeed press on with all our powers to the accom- 
 plishment of a great task, for although our destiny 
 is never entirely made by our own hands, there 
 is no destiny on the earth for the lazy ; but, since 
 a part of what we are depends not on ourselves, 
 but upon what the ancients called Fortune, we 
 dare never be too much elated over success, nor 
 abased by failure. The wheel of destiny turns 
 by a mysterious law, alike for families and for 
 peoples: those in high position may fall; those 
 in low, may rise. 
 
 Certainly C^sar never suspected when he was 
 fighting the Gauls, that the great-grandsons of 
 the vanquished would live in villas modelled on 
 the Roman, but more sumptuous; that the great 
 Gallic nobles would have the satisfaction of parad- 
 ing before the people that conquered them a latin- 
 ity more impressive and magnificent; and that 
 some day the Gaul put by him to fire and sword 
 would get the better, in empire, in wealth, in cul- 
 ture, of even Italy. 
 
Nero 
 
 10 X 
 
/^N the 13th of October of 54 a.d., when Em- 
 ^-^ peroi* Claudius died, the Senate chose as 
 his successor his adopted son, Nero, a young man 
 of seventeen, fat and short-sighted, who had until 
 then studied only music, singing, and drawing. 
 This choice of a child-emperor, who lacked im- 
 perial qualities and suggested the child kings of 
 Oriental monarchies, was a scandalous novelty in 
 the constitutional history of Rome. The ancient 
 historians, especially Tacitus, considered the event 
 as the result of an intrigue, cleverly arranged by 
 Nero 's mother, Agrippina, a daughter of German- 
 icus and granddaughter of Agrippa, the builder 
 of the Pantheon. According to these historians, 
 Agrippina, a highly ambitious woman, induced 
 Claudius to marry her after Messalina's death, 
 although she was a widow and had a child, and as 
 soon as she entered the emperor's mansion she 
 began to open the way for the election of her son. 
 In order to exclude Britannicus, the son of Messa- 
 lina, from succession, she persuaded Claudius to 
 adopt Nero ; then, with the help of the two tutors 
 
 103 
 
I04 Nero 
 
 of the young man, Seneca and Burrhus, created 
 in the Senate and among the Praetorians, a party 
 favourable to her son ; no sooner did she feel that 
 she could rely on the Senate and the Pratorians, 
 than she poisoned Claudius. 
 
 Too many difficulties prevent our accepting 
 this version. To cite one of them will suffice: if 
 Agrippina wished' — as she surely did- — ^that her 
 son should succeed Claudius, she must also have 
 wished that Claudius would live at least eight or 
 ten years longer. As a great-grandson of Drusus, 
 a grandson of Germanicus and the last descendant 
 of his line, the only line in the whole family en- 
 joying a real popularity, Nero was sure of election 
 if he were of age at the death of Claudius. After 
 the terrible scandal in which his mother had dis- 
 appeared, Britannicus was no longer a competitor 
 to be feared. There was only one danger for Nero, 
 if Claudius should die too soon, the Senate might 
 ^refuse to trust the Empire to a child. 
 
 I believe that Claudius died of disease, probably, 
 if we can judge from Tacitus 's account, of gastro- 
 enteritis, and that Agrippina 's coterie, surprised 
 by this sudden death, which upset all their plans, 
 decided to put through Nero's election in spite 
 of his youth, in order to insure the power to the 
 line of Drusus, which had so much sympathy 
 
Nero I OS 
 
 among the masses. As a matter of fact, the ad- 
 miration for Drusus and his family triumphed 
 over all other considerations: Nero became em- 
 peror at seventeen; but when the election was 
 over, Rome — again according to the tales of the 
 ancient historians — saw a still greater scandal 
 than his election. The young man — and this is 
 credible — chastened to engage as his master the 
 first zither-player of Rome, Terpnos; continued 
 his study of singing; and bought statues, pictures, 
 bronzes, beautiful slaves, while his mother seized 
 the actual control of the State. 
 
 Agrippina insisted on being kept informed of 
 all affairs; directed the home and foreign policy; 
 and if she did not reach the point of partaking in 
 the sessions of the Senate, which would have been 
 the supreme scandal, she called it to meet in her 
 palace and, concealed behind a black curtain, 
 listened to its discussions. jEn short, the Empire 
 fell into the hands of a woman; Rome saw the 
 evolution of customs, through which woman had 
 for four centuries been freeing herself from her 
 ancient slavery, suddenly a fact accomplished 
 by her visible intervention in politics — the inter- 
 vention that the great keepers of tradition, first 
 among them Cato, had always decried as the most 
 frightful cataclysm that could menace the city. 
 
io6 Nero 
 
 This story is also the exaggeration of a simpler 
 truth. Even if Nero had been a very serious 
 young man, at his age he could not by himself 
 have governed the Empire; it would have been 
 necessary for him to serve a long apprenticeship 
 and to listen to experienced counsellors. Burrhus 
 and Seneca, his two teachers, were naturally des- 
 tined to be his counsellors; but why should not 
 his mother also have helped him? Like all the 
 women of her family, Agrippina was of superior 
 mind, of high culture, and, as Tacitus himself 
 admits, led a most respectable life, at least to the 
 time of her marriage with Claudius. Brought 
 up, as she was, in that family which for eighty 
 years had been governing the Empire, she was 
 well informed about affairs of State. Is it possible 
 to suppose that such a woman would shut herself 
 up in her home to weave wool, when, with her 
 talent, her energy, her experience, she could be of 
 so much service to her son and to the State ? We 
 do not need to attribute to Agrippina a monstrous 
 ambition, as does Tacitus, in order to explain how 
 the Empire was ruled during the first two years, by 
 Seneca, Burrhus, and Agrippina; it was a natural 
 consequence of the situation created by the pre- 
 mature death of Claudius. Tacitus himself is forced 
 to recognise that the government was excellent. 
 
Nero 107 
 
 Helping her son in the apprenticeship of the 
 Empire, Agrippina did her duty ; but during rest- 
 less times when misunderstanding is almost a 
 law of social life, it is often very dangerous to do 
 one's duty. The period of Agrippina and Nero 
 was full of confusion; though apparently quiet, 
 Italy was deeply torn by the great struggle that 
 gives the history of the Empire its marvellous 
 character of actuality, the struggle between the 
 old Roman military society and the intellectual 
 civilisation of the Orient. _^^ 
 
 The ancient aristocratic and military Roman 
 society had had so great and world-wide a success, 
 that the ideas, the institutions and the customs, 
 that had made it a perfect model of State, con- 
 sidered as an organ of political and military domi- 
 nation, exercised a great prestige on the following 
 generations. Even during the time of which we 
 speak, every one was forced after eight years of 
 peace, to admit that the Empire had been created 
 by those ideas, those institutions and those cus- 
 toms ; that for the sake of the Empire they must 
 be maintained, and alike in family as in State, 
 must be opposed all that forms the essence of 
 intellectual civilisation; that is to say ,^11 that 
 develops personal selfishness at the expense of 
 collective interest — luxury, idleness, pleasure, celi- 
 
io8 Nero 
 
 bacy, feminism, and at the same time, all that 
 develops personality and intelligence at the expense 
 of tradition — ^liberty of women, independence of 
 children, variety of personal tendencies, and the 
 critical spirit in all forms. 
 
 In spite of the resistance offered by traditions, 
 peace and wealth favoured everywhere the dif- 
 fusion of the intellectual civilisation of the Hel- 
 lenised Orient. The woman now become free, 
 and the intellectual man now become powerful, 
 were the springs to set in motion this revolution. 
 Under Claudius, in vain had they exiled Seneca, 
 the brilliant philosopher and the peace-advoca- 
 ting humanitarian, who had diffused in high 
 Roman society so many ideas and sentiments 
 considered by the traditionalists pernicious to 
 the force of the State ; he had come back far more 
 powerful, and ruled the Empire. Husbands, 
 burdened by the excessive expenses, by the too 
 frequent infidelities, by the tyrannical caprices 
 of their wives, in vain regretted the good old time 
 when husbands were absolute masters ; the invad- 
 ing feminism weakened everywhere the strength 
 of the aristocratic and military traditions. 
 
 So contradiction was everywhere. The Repub- 
 lic had still its old aristocratic constitution, but the 
 nobility was no longer spurred by that absorbing 
 
Nero 109 
 
 and exclusive passion for politics and war, which 
 had been its power. Society life, pleasure, amateur 
 philosophy and literature, mysticism, and, above 
 all, sports, dissipated in a thousand directions 
 its energy and activity. Too many young men 
 were to be found in the nobility who, like Nero, 
 preferred singing, dancing, and driving, to caring 
 for their clients or enduring the troubles of public 
 office. 
 
 Augustus and Tiberius had done their utmost 
 to strengthen the great Latin principle of par- 
 simony in public and private life: in order to set 
 a good example they had lived very simply ; they 
 had caused new sumptuary laws to be passed and 
 tried to enforce the old ones ; they had spent the 
 State moneys, not for the keeping of artists and 
 writers, nor for the building of monuments of 
 useless size, but to build the great roads of the 
 Empire, to strengthen the frontiers; they had 
 made the public treasure into an aid fund for all 
 suffering cities, stricken by earthquake, fire, or 
 flood. And yet the Oriental influence, so favour- 
 able to unproductive and luxurious expenditure, 
 gained ground steadily. The merchant of Syrian 
 and Egyptian objects de luxe, in spite of the sump- 
 tuary laws, found a yearly increasing patronage 
 in all the cities of Italy. The exactingness of the 
 
no Nero 
 
 desire for public spectacles increased, even in 
 secondary cities. The Italian people were losing 
 their peasant's petty avarice and growing fond 
 of things monumental and colossal, which was 
 the great folly of the Orient. They found the 
 monuments of Rome poor; everywhere, even in 
 modest municipia, they demanded immense thea- 
 tres, great temples, monumental basilicas, spacious 
 forums, adorned with statues. In spite of the 
 principles insisted upon with so much vigour by 
 Augustus and Tiberius, public finances had, thanks 
 to the weak Claudius and the extravagant Messa- 
 lina, already gone through a period of great waste 
 and disorder. 
 
 These contradictions, and the psychological 
 disorder that followed, explain the discords and 
 struggles very soon raging around the young Em- 
 peror. The public began to feel shocked by the 
 attention that Agrippina gave to State affairs, 
 as by a new and this time intolerable scandal of 
 feminism. Agrippina was not a feminist, as a 
 matter of fact, but a traditionalist, proud of the 
 glory of her family, attached to the ancient Roman 
 ideas, desirous only of seeing her son develop into 
 a new Germanicus, a second Drusus. Solely the 
 necessity of helping Nero had led her to meddle 
 with politics. But not in vain had Cato declaimed 
 
Nero III 
 
 so loudly in Rome against women who pretend 
 to govern states ; not in vain had Augustus's domi- 
 nation been at least partly founded on the great 
 antifeminist legend of Antony and Cleopatra, 
 which represented the fall of the great Triumvir 
 as the consequence of a woman's influence. The 
 public, although willing to give all possible free- 
 dom to women in other things, still remained quite 
 firm on this point : politics must remain the mono- 
 poly of man. So to the popular imagination, 
 Agrippina soon became a sort of Roman Cleo- 
 patra. Many interests gathered quickly to rein- 
 force this antifeminist reaction, which, although 
 exaggerated, had its origin in sincere feeling. 
 
 Agrippina, as a true descendant of Drusus, 
 meant to prepare her son to rule the Empire ac- 
 cording to the principles held by his great ances- 
 tors. Among these principles was to be counted 
 not only the defence of Romanism and the mainte- 
 nance of the aristocratic constitution, but also 
 a wise economy in the management of finances. 
 Agrippina is a good instance of that well-known 
 fact' — ^the British have noticed it more than once 
 in India' — ^that in public administration discreet 
 and capable women keep, as a rule, the spirit of 
 economy with which they manage the home. This 
 is why, especially in despotic states, they rule 
 
112 
 
 Nero 
 
 better than men. Even before Claudius's death, 
 Agrippina had vigorously opposed waste and 
 plunder; it also appears that the reorganisation 
 of finances after Messalina 's death was due chiefly 
 to her. 
 
 The continuation under Nero of this severe 
 regime displeased a great number of persons, who 
 dreamed of seeing again the easy sway of Messa- 
 lina. From the moment they were satisfied that 
 Agrippina, like Augustus and Tiberius, would 
 not allow the public money to be stolen, many 
 people found her insistent interference in public 
 affairs unbearable. In short, Agrippina became 
 unpopular, and, as always happens, because of 
 faults she did not have. A noble deed, which 
 she was trying to accomplish in defence of tradi- 
 tion, definitively compromised her situation. 
 
 Her son resembled neither Agrippina nor the 
 great men of her family. He had a most indocile 
 temperament, rebellious to tradition, in no sense 
 Roman. Little by little, Agrippina saw the young 
 Emperor develop into a precocious debauche, fright- 
 fully selfish, erratically vain, full of extravagant 
 ideas, who, instead of setting the example of re- 
 spect toward sumptuary laws, openly violated 
 them all; and across whose mind from time to 
 time flashed sinister Hghtnings of cruelty. Nero 's 
 
Nero 113 
 
 youth — ^the fact is not surprising — did not resist 
 the mortal seductions of immense power and im- 
 mense riches; but Agrippina, the proud grand- 
 daughter of the conqueror of Germany, must 
 have chafed at the idea of her son's preferring 
 musical entertainments to the sessions of the 
 Senate, singing lessons to the study of tactics and 
 strategy. 
 
 She applied herself, therefore, with all her en- 
 ergy to the work of tearing her son from his pleas- 
 ures, and bringing about his return to the great 
 traditions of his family. Nero resisted : the strug- 
 gle between mother and son grew complicated; 
 it excited the passion of the public, which felt 
 that this conflict had a greater importance than 
 any other family quarrel, that it was actually a 
 struggle between traditional Romanism and Ori- 
 ental customs. Unfortunately, every one sided 
 with Nero : the sincere friends of tradition, because 
 they did not want the rule of a woman, whoever 
 she might be; those that longed for Messalina's 
 times, because they saw personified in Agrippina 
 the austere and inflexible spirit of the gens Clau- 
 dia. The situation was soon without an issue. 
 The accord of Agrippina with Seneca and Bur- 
 rhus was troubled, because the two teachers of 
 the young Emperor, under the impression of public 
 
114 Nero 
 
 malcontent, had somewhat withdrawn from her. 
 Nero, who was sullen, cynical, and lazy, feared 
 his mother too much to have the courage to oppose 
 her openly, but he did not fear her enough to 
 mend his ways. The mother, on her side, was 
 set to do her duty to the end. Like all situations 
 without an issue, this one was suddenly solved 
 by an unexpected event. 
 
 Insisting on wanting to make a Roman of this 
 young debauche, Agrippina made him into a mur- 
 derer. Nero, progressing from one caprice to an- 
 other, finally imagined a great folly: to divorce 
 Octavia and to raise to her place a beautiful freed- 
 woman called Acte. According to one of the 
 fundamental laws of the State, the great law of 
 Augustus on marriage, which forbade marriages 
 between senators and freedwomen, the union of 
 Nero and Acte could be only a concubinage. 
 Agrippina wanted to avoid this scandal; and, as 
 Nero persisted in his idea, it seems that she actu- 
 ally thought of having him deposed and of securing 
 the choice of Britannicus, a very serious young 
 man, as his successor. A true Roman, Agrippina 
 was ready to sacrifice her son for the sake of the 
 Republic. 
 
 The threat was, or appeared to be, so serious 
 to Nero, that it made him step over the threshold 
 
Nero IIS 
 
 of crime. One day during a great dinner to which 
 he had been invited by Nero, Britannicus was 
 suddenly seized with violent convulsions. "It is 
 an attack of epilepsy," said Nero calmly, giving 
 orders to his slaves to remove Britarmicus and 
 care for him. The young man died in a few hours 
 and every one believed that Nero had poisoned 
 him. 
 
 This dastardly crime aroused at first a sense of 
 horror and fright among the people, but the im- 
 pression did not last long. In spite of all his faults, 
 Nero was liked. In Rome they had respected 
 Augustus and hated Tiberius; they had killed 
 Caligula and jeered at Claudius; Nero seemed to 
 be the first of the Roman Emperors who stood 
 a chance of becoming popular. Contrary to Agrip- 
 pina's ideas, it was his frivolity that pleased the 
 great masses, because this frivolity corresponded 
 to the slow but progressive decay of the old Roman 
 virtues in them. They expected from Nero a less 
 hard, less severe, less parsimonious government — 
 in a word, a government less Roman than the 
 rule of his predecessors, a government which, 
 instead of force, glory, and wisdom, meant pleas- 
 ure and ease. 
 
 So it happened that many soon forgot the un- 
 fortunate Britannicus, and some even tried to 
 
ii6 Nero 
 
 justify Nero by invoking State necessity. Agrip- 
 pina alone remained the object of the universal 
 hatred, as the sole cause of so many misfortunes. 
 Implacable enemies, concealed in the shadow, 
 were subtly at work against herj they organised 
 a compaign of absurd calumnies in the Court itself^ 
 and it is this campaign from which Tacitus drew 
 his material. 
 
 Some wretches finally dared even accuse her 
 of conspiracy against the life of her son. Agrip- 
 pina, refusing to plead for herself, still weathered 
 the storm, because Nero was afraid of her, and 
 though he tried to escape from her authority, 
 did not dare to initiate any energetic move against 
 her. To engage in a final struggle with so indomi- 
 table a woman, another woman was necessary. 
 This woman was Poppsea Sabina, a very hand- 
 some and able dame of the great Roman nobility. 
 Poppasa represented Oriental feminism in its 
 most dangerous form: a woman completely de- 
 moralised by luxury, elegance, society life, and 
 voluptuousness, who eluded all her duties toward 
 the species in order to enjoy and make others 
 enjoy her beauty. 
 
 Corrupted as that age was, Poppasa was more 
 corrupt. As soon as she observed the strong im- 
 pression she had made on Nero, she conceived 
 
Nero 117 
 
 the plan of becoming his wife ; her beauty would 
 then be admired by the whole Empire, would be 
 surrounded by a luxury for which the means of 
 her husband were not sufHcient, and with which 
 no other Roman dame could compete. There 
 was one obstacle — ^Agrippina. 
 
 Agrippina protected Octavia, a true Roman 
 woman, simple and honest: Agrippina would 
 never consent to this absolutely unjustifiable 
 divorce. To force Nero to a decisive move against 
 his mother, Poppaea had her husband sent on some 
 mission to Lusitania and became the mistress 
 of the Emperor. From that point the situation 
 changed. Dominated by Poppasa's influence, 
 Nero found the courage to force Agrippina 
 to abandon his palace and seek refuge in 
 Antony's house; he took from her the privilege 
 of Praetorian guards, which he himself had granted 
 her; he reduced to a minimum the number and 
 time of his visits, and carefully avoided being 
 left alone with her. Agrippina *s influence, to the 
 general satisfaction, rapidly declined, while Nero 
 gained every day in popularity. Agrippina, how- 
 ever, was too energetic a woman peaceably to 
 resign herself: she began a violent campaign 
 against the two adulterers, which deeply troubled 
 the public. In Rome, where Augustus had pro- 
 
ii8 Nero 
 
 mulgated his stem law against adulteiy ; in Rome, 
 where Augustus himself had been obliged to sub- 
 mit to his own law, when he exiled his daughter 
 and his grand-daughter and almost exterminated 
 the whole family ; in Rome, a young man of twenty- 
 two dared all but officially introduce adultery 
 and polygamy into the Palatine ! In her struggle 
 against Nero, Agrippina once more stood on tra- 
 dition : and Nero was afraid. 
 
 Poppaea was probably the one who suggested 
 to Nero the idea of killing Agrippina. The idea 
 had been, as it were, floating in the air for a long 
 time, because Agrippina was embarrassing to 
 many persons and interests. It was chiefly the 
 party that wanted to sack the imperial budget, 
 to introduce the finance of great expenditure, 
 which could not tolerate this clever and energetic 
 woman, who was so faithful to the great traditions 
 of Augustus and Tiberius, who could neither be 
 frightened nor corrupted. One should not con- 
 sider the assassination of Agrippina as a simple 
 personal crime of Nero, as the result of his and 
 Poppaea 's quarrels with his mother. This crime, 
 besides personal causes, had a political origin. 
 Nero would never have dared commit such a mis- 
 deed, in the eyes of the Roman almost a sacrilege, 
 if he had not been encouraged by Agrippina 's 
 
Nero 119 
 
 unpopularity, by the violent hatred of so many 
 against his mother. *? 
 
 Nero hesitated long; he decided only when his 
 freedman, Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, 
 proposed a plan that seemed to guarantee secrecy 
 for the crime : to have a ship built with a concealed 
 trap. It was the spring of the year 59 a.d.; the 
 Court had moved to Baiae, on the Gulf of Naples. 
 If Nero succeeded in getting his mother on board 
 the vessel, Anicetus would take upon himself the 
 task of burying quickly below the waves the 
 secret of her death; the people who hated Agrip- 
 pina would easily be satisfied with the explanations 
 to be given them. 
 
 Nero executed his part of the plan in perfect 
 cold-blood. He made believe he had repented 
 and was anxious for a reconciliation with his 
 mother; he invited her to Baiae and so pro- 
 fusely lavished kindnesses and amiabilities upon 
 her, that Agrippina finally believed in his 
 sincerity. 
 
 After spending a few days at Baiae, Agrippina 
 decided to return to Antium; in a very happy 
 frame of mind and full of hopes that her son would 
 soon show himself to the world the man she had 
 dreamed, the descendant of Drusus, she boarded 
 one evening the fatal ship; Nero had escorted 
 
I20 Nero 
 
 her thither and pressed her to his heart with the 
 most demonstrative tenderness. 
 
 A calm night diffused its starry shadows over 
 the quiet sea, which with subdued murmur 
 lulled in their sleep the great summer homes 
 along the shore. The ship departed, carrying 
 toward her sombre destiny Agrippina, absorbed in 
 her smiling dreams. When the moment came and 
 the wrecking machine was set to work, the vessel 
 did not sink as fast as they had hoped: it listed, 
 overturning people and things. Agrippina had 
 time to understand the danger; with admirable 
 presence of mind she jumped overboard and es- 
 caped by swimming, while, during the confusion 
 on the boat, the hired murderers killed one of 
 Agrippina 's freedwomen, mistaking her for Agrip- 
 pina herself. The ship finally sank ; the murderers 
 also took to the water ; everything returned to its 
 wonted calm; the starry night still diffused its 
 silent shadows ; the sea still cradled with subdued 
 murmur the homes along the coast — all men 
 slept except one. 
 
 Within this one, Anxiety watched: a son was 
 awaiting the news that his mother was dead, and 
 that he was free to celebrate a criminal marriage. 
 The escaped murderers soon brought the news 
 so impatiently expected — ^but Nero's joy was short. 
 
Nero 121 
 
 At dawn, a freedman of Agrippina arrived at the 
 Emperor 's villa. Agrippina, picked up by a boat, 
 had succeeded in reaching one of her villas near 
 by; she sent the freedman to tell the Emperor 
 about the accident and to assure him of her safety. 
 Agrippina alive! It was like a thunderbolt to 
 Nero, and he lost his head: he saw his mother 
 hurrying on to Rome, denouncing the abominable 
 attempt to Senate and people, rousing against 
 him the Prstorian guard and the legions. Thor- 
 oughly frightened, he summoned Seneca and 
 Burrhus and laid before them the terrible situation. 
 It is easy to imagine the shock of the old precep- 
 tors. How could he risk such a grave imprudence ? 
 And yet there was no time to lose in reproaches. 
 Nero begged for advice : Seneca and Burrhus were 
 silent, but they, also frightened, asked of them- 
 selves what Agrippina would do. Would she not 
 provoke a colossal scandal, which would ruin 
 everything? An expedient, the same one, occurred 
 to both of them : but so sinister was the idea that 
 they dared not speak it. This time, however, both 
 the philosopher and the general were deceived as 
 well as Nero: Agrippina had guessed the truth 
 and given up the struggle. What could she, a 
 lone woman do against an Emperor who did not 
 stop even at the plan of murdering his mother? 
 
122 Nero 
 
 She realised, during that awful night, that only- 
 one chance of safety was left to her — ^to ignore 
 what had taken place ; and she sent her freedman 
 with the message that meant forgiveness. But 
 fear kept Nero and his counsellors from under- 
 standing ; and when they could easily have reme- 
 died the preceding mistake, they compromised 
 all by a supreme error. Finally Seneca, the paci- 
 ficator and humanitarian philosopher, thought 
 he had found the way of making half-openly the 
 only suggestion which seemed wise to him: he 
 turned to Burrhus and asked what might happen, 
 if an order were given the Praetorians to kill Nero 's 
 mother. Burrhus understood that his colleague, 
 although the first to give the fatal advice, was 
 trying to shift upon him the much more serious 
 responsibility of carrying it Out; since, if they 
 reached the decision of having Agrippina disposed 
 of by the Praetorians, no one but he, the commander 
 of the guard, could utter the order. He therefore 
 protested with the greatest energy that the Prae- 
 torians would never lay murderous hands on the 
 daughter of Germanicus. Then he added cogita- 
 tively that, if it were thought necessary, Anicetus 
 and his sailors could finish the work already begun. 
 Thus Burrhus gave the same advice as Seneca, 
 but he, like his colleague, meant to pass on to 
 
Nero 123 
 
 some one else the task of execution. He chose 
 better than Seneca: Anicetus, if Agrippina lived, 
 ran a serious risk of becoming the scapegoat of all 
 this affair. In fact, as soon as Nero gave his as- 
 sent, Anicetus and a few sailors hastened to the 
 villa of Agrippina and stabbed her. 
 
 The crime was abominable. Nero and his circle 
 were so awed by it that they attempted to make 
 the people believe that Agrippina had committed 
 suicide, when her conspiracy against her son's 
 life had been discovered. This was the official 
 version of Agrippina 's death, sent by Nero to the 
 Senate. But this audacious mystification had 
 no success. The public divined the truth, and 
 roused by the voice of their age-long instincts, 
 they cried out that the Emperor no less than any 
 peasant of Italy must revere his father and his 
 mother. Through a sudden turn of public feeling, 
 Agrippina, who had been so much hated during 
 her life, became the object of a kind of popular 
 veneration ; Nero, on the other hand, and Popp^a 
 inspired a sentiment of profound horror. 
 
 If Nero had found the living Agrippina unbear- 
 able, he soon realised that his dead mother was 
 much more to be feared. In fact, scared as he 
 was by the popular agitation, not only had he 
 temporarily to give up the plan of divorcing 
 
124 Nero 
 
 Octavia and marrying Poppaea, but felt obliged 
 to stay several months at Baise, not daring to 
 return to Rome. He was, however, no longer a 
 child: he was twenty -three years old and had 
 some talent. Men of intelligence and energy were 
 also not wanting in his entourage. The first shock 
 once over, the Emperor and his coterie rallied. 
 The first impression had indeed been disastrous, 
 but had brought about no irreparable consequen- 
 ces — ^the only consequences that count in politics. 
 One could therefore hope that the public would 
 gradually forget this murder as they had forgotten 
 that of Britannicus. One only needed to help 
 them forget. Nero resolved to give Italy and 
 Rome the administrative revolution that had 
 found in Agrippina so determined an opponent, 
 the easy, splendid, generous government that 
 seemed to suit the popular taste. 
 
 He began by organising among the jeunesse 
 doree of Rome the "festivals of youth. " In these 
 true demonstrations against the old aristocratic 
 education, now in the house of one and then in 
 the garden of another, the young patricians met 
 under the Emperor's directions. They sang, 
 recited, and danced, displaying all the tendencies 
 that tradition held unworthy of a Roman noble- 
 man. Later, Nero built in the Vatican fields a 
 
Nero 125 
 
 private stadium, where he amused himself with 
 driving, and invited his friends to join him. He 
 surrounded himself with poets, musicians, singers ; 
 enormously increased the budget of popular fes- 
 tivals; planned and started immense construc- 
 tions ; introduced into all parts of the administra- 
 tion a new spirit of carelessness and ease. Not 
 only the sumptuary laws, but all laws commanding 
 the fulfilment of human duties toward the species, 
 such as the great laws of Augustus on marriage 
 and adultery, were no longer applied ; the surveil- 
 lance of the Senate over the governors, that of 
 the governors over the cities, slackened. In Rome, 
 in all Italy, in the provinces, the treasuries of 
 the Republic, the possessions and the funds of 
 the cities, were robbed. In the midst of this un- 
 bridled plundering, which appeared to make every 
 man rich quickly, and without work, a delirium 
 of luxury and pleasure reigned: in Rome especially, 
 people lived in a continuous orgy; the nobility 
 answered in crowds the invitations of Nero; the 
 Senate, the great houses, where the conquerors 
 of the world had been bom, swarmed with young 
 athletes and drivers, who had no other ambition 
 but that of adding the prize of a race to the war 
 trophies of their ancestors; the imperial palace 
 was invaded by a noisy horde of zitherists, actors, 
 
126 Nero 
 
 jockeys, athletes, among whom Burrhus and, 
 still more, Seneca, were beginning to feel most 
 ill at ease. 
 
 Agrippina's death, even though it had yet de- 
 ferred Nero's marrying Poppasa, had made pos- 
 sible the change in the government that a part 
 of the people wished. We owe to this new prin- 
 ciple the immense ruins of ancient Rome; but 
 this fact does not authorise us to consider it a 
 Roman principle: it was, instead, a principle of 
 Oriental civilisation which had forced itself upon 
 the Roman traditions after a long and painful 
 effort. The revolution, however, had been long 
 preparing and corresponded to the popular as- 
 pirations. It would, therefore, have redounded 
 to the advantage of the Emperor, who had dared 
 to break loose from a superannuated tradition, 
 had not Agrippina's spectre still haunted Rome. 
 To their honour be it said, the people of Rome 
 and Italy had not yet become so corrupted by 
 Oriental civilisation as to forget parricide in a 
 few festivals. 
 
 The party of tradition, though weakened, ex- 
 isted. They began a brave fight against Nero, 
 using the assassination of Agrippina as the adverse 
 party had exploited the antifeminist prejudices of 
 the masses against Agrippina herself. They de- 
 
Nero 127 
 
 nounced the parricide to the people, in order to 
 attack the champion of Orientalism and irritate 
 against him the indifferent mass, which, not under- 
 standing the great struggle between the Orient 
 and Rome, remained unstirred. Hoping the ex- 
 citement of spirit had somewhat subsided, Nero 
 had finally carried out his old plan of divorcing 
 Octavia and marrying Poppasa; but the divorce 
 caused great popular demonstrations in Rome in 
 favour of the abused wife and against the intruder. 
 
 Moreover, thanks to his extravagance, Nero 
 made things very easy for his enemies, the defend- 
 ers of tradition. His habits of dissipation exag- 
 gerated all the faults of his character, chiefly his 
 morbid need of showing himself off, of defying 
 the public, their prejudices, their opinions. It is 
 difficult to discern how much is true and how 
 much is false in the hideous stories of debauchery 
 handed down to us by the ancient writers, par- 
 ticularly Suetonius. 
 
 Although one might believe — ^and I believe it 
 for my part — ^that there is a great deal of exag- 
 geration in such tales, it is certain that Nero's 
 personality played too conspicuous a part in his 
 administrative revolution. Ready as the people 
 were to admire a more generous and luxurious 
 government than that of Augustus, Tiberius, and 
 
128 Nero 
 
 Claudius, they still liked to look to the chief of 
 State as to a man of gravity and austerity, who 
 let others amuse themselves, though he himself 
 be bored. The vain and bizarre young man, who 
 was always the guest of honour at his own f^tes, 
 who never hesitated to satisfy his most extrava- 
 gant caprices, who spent so much money to divert 
 himself, shocked the last republican susceptibili- 
 ties of Italy. The wise felt alarmed: with such 
 expenses, would it not all end in bankruptcy? 
 For all these causes, they soon began to reproach 
 Nero for his prodigality, although the people 
 enjoyed it, just as they had been malcontent with 
 Tiberius for his parsimony. His caprices, ever 
 stranger, little by little roused even that part of 
 the public which was not fanatically attached to 
 tradition. At that time Nero developed his foolish 
 vanity of actor, his caprice for the theatre, which 
 soon was to become an all-absorbing mania. The 
 chief of the Empire, the heir of Julius Caesar, 
 dreamed of nothing else than descending from 
 the height of human grandeur to the scene of a 
 theatre, to experience before the public the sensa- 
 tions of those players whom the Roman nobility 
 had always regarded as instruments of infamous 
 pleasure ! 
 
 Disgusted with Nero's mismanagement and 
 
Nero 129 
 
 follies, Seneca took the death of Burrhus as an 
 opportunity to retire. Then Nero, freed from the 
 last person who still retained any influence over 
 him, gave himself up entirely to the insane swirl 
 of his caprices. He ended one day by presenting 
 himself in the theatre of Naples. Naples was 
 yet then a Greek city. Nero had chosen it for 
 this reason; he was applauded with frenzy. But 
 the Italians of the other cities protested : the chief 
 of the Empire appearing in a theatre, his hand on 
 the zither and not on the sword! Imagine what 
 would be the impression if some day a sovereign 
 went on the stage of the jolies Berghes as a 
 "number" for a sleight-of-hand performance! 
 
 Public attention, however, was turned from 
 this immense scandal by a frightful calamity — ^the 
 famous conflagration of Rome, which began the 
 nineteenth of July of the year 64 and devastated 
 almost all quarters of the city for ten days. "What 
 was the cause of the great disaster? This very 
 obscure point has much interested historians, 
 who have tried in vain to throw light on the sub- 
 ject. As far as I am concerned, I by no means 
 exclude the hypothesis that the fire might have 
 been accidental. But when they are crushed 
 under the weight of a great misfortune, men always 
 feel sure that they are the victims of human 
 9 
 
I30 Nero 
 
 wickedness : a sad proof of their distrust in their 
 fellow men. The plebs, reduced to utter misery by 
 the disaster, began to murmur that mysterious 
 people had been seen hurrying through the 
 different quarters, kindling the fire and cum- 
 bering the work of help; these incendiaries 
 must have been sent by some one in power — 
 by whom? 
 
 A strange rumour circulated: Nero himself 
 had ordered the city to be burned, in order to 
 enjoy a unique sight, to get an idea of the fire of 
 Troy, to have the glory of rebuilding Rome on 
 a more magnificent scale. The accusation seems 
 to me absurd. Nero was a criminal, but he was 
 not a fool to the point of provoking the wrath of 
 the whole people for so light a motive, especially 
 after Agrippina 's death. Tacitus himself, in spite 
 of his hatred of all Csesar 's family and his readi- 
 ness to make them responsible for the most serious 
 crimes, does not venture to express belief in this 
 story — ^sufficient proof that he considers it absurd 
 and unlikely. Nevertheless, the hatred that sur- 
 rounded Nero and Poppaea made every one, not 
 only among the ignorant populace, but also among 
 the higher classes, accept it readily. It was soon 
 the general opinion that Nero had accomplished 
 what Brennus and Catiline's conspirators could 
 
Nero 131 
 
 not do. Was a more horrible monster ever seen? 
 Parricide, actor, incendiary! 
 
 The traditionalist party, the opposition, the 
 unsatisfied, exploited without scruple this popu- 
 lar attitude, and Nero, responsible for a sufficient 
 number of actual crimes, found himself accused 
 also of an imaginary one. He was so frightened 
 that he decided to give the clamouring people a 
 victim, some one on whom Rome could avenge 
 its sorrow. An inquiry into the causes of the 
 conflagration was ordered. The inquest came to 
 a strange conclusion. The fire had been started 
 by a small religious sect, recently imported from 
 the Orient, a sect whose name most people then 
 learned for the first time : the Christians. 
 
 How did the Roman authorities come to such 
 a conclusion? That is one of the greatest mys- 
 teries of universal history, and no one will ever 
 be able to clear it. If the explanation of the 
 disaster as accepted by the people was absurd, 
 the official explanation was still more so. The 
 Christian community of Rome, the pretended 
 volcano of civil hatred, which had poured forth 
 the destructive fire over the great metropolis, 
 was a small and peaceful congregation of pious 
 idealists. 
 
 A great and simple man, Paul of Tarsus, had 
 
132 Nero 
 
 taken up again among them the great work in 
 which Augustus and Tiberius had failed : he aimed 
 at the remaking of popular conscience, but used 
 means until then unknown in the Grseco-Latin 
 civilisation. Not in the name of the ancestors, 
 of the traditions, of ideals of political power, did 
 he seek to persuade men to work, to refrain from 
 vice, to live honestly and simply ; but in the name 
 of a single God, whom man had in the beginning 
 offended through his pride, in the name of the 
 Son of God, who had taken human form and 
 volunteered to die as a criminal on the cross, to 
 appease the Father's wrath against the rebellious 
 creature. On the Grseco-Roman idea of duty, 
 Paul grafted the Christian idea of sin. Doubtless 
 the new theology must have seemed at first ob- 
 scure to Greeks and Romans; but Paul put into 
 it that new spirit, mutual love, which the dry 
 Latin soul had hardly ever known, and he 
 vivified it with the example of an obscure life 
 of sacrifice. 
 
 Paul was bom of a noble Hebrew family of 
 Tarsus, and was a man of high culture. He had, 
 to use a modem expression, simplified himself, 
 renounced his position in a time when few could 
 resist the passion for luxury, and taken up a 
 trade for his living; with the scanty profit from 
 
Nero 133 
 
 his work as a tent-maker, alone and on foot he 
 made measureless journeys through the Empire, 
 everywhere preaching the redemption of man. 
 Finally, after numberless adventures and perils, 
 he had come to Rome and had, in the great city 
 frenzied by the delirium of luxury and pleasure, 
 repeated to the poor, who alone were willing to 
 hear him: "Be chaste and pure, do not deceive 
 each other, love one another, help one another, 
 love God." 
 
 If Nero had known the little society of pious 
 idealists, he surely would have hated it, but for 
 other motives than the imaginary accusations 
 of his police. In this story St. Paul is exactly 
 the antithesis of Nero. The latter represents the 
 atrocious selfishness of rich, peaceful, highly 
 civilised epochs; the former, the ardent moral 
 idealism which tries to react against the cardinal 
 vices of power and wealth through universal self- 
 sacrifice and asceticism. Neither of these men 
 is to be comprehended without the other, because 
 the moral doctrine of Paul is partly a reaction 
 against the violent folly for which Nero stood 
 the symbol ; but it certainly was not philosophical 
 considerations of this kind that led the Roman 
 authorities to rage against the Christians. The 
 problem, I repeat, is insoluble. However this 
 
134 Nero 
 
 may be, the Christians were declared responsible 
 for the fire; a great number were taken into cus- 
 tody, sentenced to death, executed in different 
 ways, during the festivals that Nero offered to 
 the people to appease them. Possibly Paul 
 himself was one of the victims of this per- 
 secution. 
 
 This diversion, however, was of no use. The 
 conflagration definitely ruined Nero. With the 
 conflagration begins the third period of his life, 
 which lasts four years. It is characterised by 
 absurd exaggerations of all kinds, which hastened 
 the inevitable catastrophe. One grandiose idea 
 dominates it: the idea of building on the ruins 
 a new Rome, immense and magnificent, a true 
 metropolis for the Empire. In order to carry 
 out this plan, Nero did not economise ; he began 
 to spend in it the moneys laid aside to pay the 
 legions. The people of Italy, however, and even 
 of Rome, which grew rich on these public expen- 
 ditures, did not show themselves thankful for 
 this immense architectural effort. Every one 
 was sure that the new city would be worse than 
 the old one ! 
 
 Nero himself, exasperated by this invincible 
 hate, exhausted by his own excesses, lost what 
 reason he had still left, and his government 
 
Nero 13 s 
 
 degenerated into a complete tyranny, suspicious, 
 violent, and cruel, 
 
 Piso's conspiracy caused him to order a mas- 
 sacre of patricians, which left terrible rancour 
 in its wake ; in an access of fury, he killed Poppaea • 
 he began to imagine accusations against the richest 
 men of the Empire, in order to confiscate their 
 estates. His prodigality and the general careless- 
 ness had completely disorganised the finances of 
 the Empire; he had to recur to all kinds of ex- 
 pedients to find money. Finally he imdertook a 
 great artistic tour in Greece — that province which 
 had been the mother of arts — to play in its most 
 celebrated theatres. This time indignation burst 
 all bounds. The armies of Gaul and Spain, for 
 a long time irregularly paid, led by their officers, 
 revolted. This act of energy sufficed. On the 
 9th of Jime, 68 a.d., abandoned by all the world, 
 Nero was compelled to commit suicide. 
 
 So the family of Julius Cassar disappears 
 from history. After so much greatness, genius, 
 and wisdom, the fall may seem petty and almost 
 laughable. It is absurd to lose the Empire for 
 the pleasure of singing in a theatre. And yet, 
 bizarre as the end may seem, it was not the re- 
 sult of the vices, the follies, and the crimes of Nero 
 alone. In his way, Nero himself was, like all 
 
136 Nero 
 
 members of his family, the victim of the contra- 
 dictory situation of his times. 
 
 It has been repeated for centuries, that the 
 foundation of monarchy was the great mission 
 of Caesar's family. I believe this to be a great 
 mistake. The lot of the family would have been 
 simple and easy, if it had been able to foimd a 
 monarchy. The family of Ceesar had to solve 
 another problem, much more difficult, — in fact 
 insoluble ; a problem that may be compared, from 
 a certain point of view, to that which confronted 
 the Bonapartes in the nineteenth century. The 
 Bonapartes fotmd old monarchical, legitimistic, 
 theocratic Europe agitated by forces which, al- 
 though making it impossible for the ancient regime 
 to continue, were not yet able to establish a new 
 society, entirely democratic, republican, and lay. 
 The family of Caesar found the opposite situation : 
 an old military and aristocratic republic, which 
 was changing into an intellectual and monarchical 
 civilisation, based on equality, but opposing form- 
 idable resistance to the forces of transformation. 
 In these situations the two families tried in all 
 ways to reconcile things not to be conciliated, 
 to realise the impossible: one, the popular mon- 
 archy and imperial democracy; the other, the 
 monarchical republic and Orientalised Latinity. 
 
Nero 137 
 
 The contradiction was for both families the law 
 of life, the cause of greatness; this explains why 
 neither was ever willing to extricate itself from 
 it, in spite of the advice of philosophers, the mal- 
 content of the masses, the pressure of parties, 
 and the evident dangers. This contradiction 
 was also the fatality of both families, the cause 
 of their ruin ; it explains the shortness of their 
 power, their restless existence, and the continuous 
 catastrophes that opened the way to the final 
 crash. 
 
 Waterloo and Sedan, the exile of Julia and the 
 tragic failure of Tiberius 's government, all the 
 misfortunes great and small which struck the two 
 families, were always consequences of the insoluble 
 contradiction they tried to solve. You have had 
 a perfectly characteristic example of it in the 
 brief story I have been telling you. Agrippina 
 becomes an object of tmiversal hatred and dies by 
 assassination because she defends tradition; her 
 son disregards tradition and, chiefly for this very 
 reason, is finally forced to kill himself. Doubt- 
 less the fate of the Bonapartes is less tragic, 
 because they, at least, escaped the infamous 
 legend created by contemporary hatred against 
 Caesar's family, and artfully developed by the 
 historians of successive generations. I hope to 
 
138 Nero 
 
 be able to prove in the continuation of my Great- 
 ness and Decline of Rome, that the history of 
 Caesar's family, as it has been told by Tacitus and 
 Suetonius, is a sensational novel, a legend con- 
 taining not much more truth than the legend 
 of Atrides. The family of Caesar, placed in the 
 centre of the great struggle going on in Rome 
 between the old Roman militarism, and the in- 
 tellectual civilisation of the Orient, between na- 
 tionalism and cosmopolitism, between Asiatic 
 mysticism and traditional religion, between egoism 
 over-excited by culture and wealth, and the su- 
 preme interests of the species, had to injure too 
 many interests, to offend too many susceptibilities. 
 The injured interests, the offended susceptibilities, 
 revenged themselves through defaming legends. 
 
 The case of Nero is particularly instructive. 
 He was half insane and a veritable criminal: it 
 would be absurd to attempt in his favour the 
 historical rehabilitation to which other members 
 of the family, Tiberius for instance, have a right. 
 And yet it has not been enough for succeeding 
 generations that he atoned for his follies and 
 crimes by death and infamy. They have fallen 
 upon his memory: they have overlooked that 
 extenuating circumstance of considerable im- 
 portance, his age when elected; they have gone 
 
Nero 139 
 
 so far as to make him into a unique monster, no 
 longer human and even the Antichrist ! 
 
 Surely he first shed Christian blood ; but if we 
 consider the tendency he represented in Roman 
 history, we can hardly classify him among the 
 great enemies of Christianity. Unwittingly, Au- 
 gustus and Tiberius were two great enemies of 
 the Christian teachings, because they sought by 
 all means to reinforce Roman tradition, and 
 struggled against everything that would one 
 day form the essence of Christianity — cosmopo- 
 litism, mysticism, the domination of intellectual 
 people, the influence of the philosophical and 
 metaphysical spirit on life. Nero, on the contrary, 
 with his repeated efforts to spread Orientalism 
 in Rome, and chiefly with his taste for art, was 
 unconsciously a powerful collaborator of future 
 Christian propaganda. We must not forget this: 
 the masses in the Empire became Christian only 
 because they had first been imbued with the 
 Oriental spirit. 
 
 Nero and St. Paul, the man that wished to 
 enjoy all, and the man that suffered all, are in 
 their time two extreme antitheses: with the pas- 
 sing of centuries, they become two collaborators. 
 While one suffered hunger and persecution to 
 preach the doctrine of redemption, the other called 
 
1 40 Nero 
 
 to Italy and to Rome, to amuse himself, the gold- 
 smiths, weavers, sculptors, painters, architects, 
 musicians, whom Rome had always rebuffed. 
 
 Both disappeared, cut off by the violent current 
 of their epoch; centuries went by: the name of 
 the Emperor grew infamous, while that of the 
 tent-maker radiated glory. In the midst of the 
 immense disorder that accompanied the dissolu- 
 tion of the Roman Empire, as the bonds among 
 men relaxed, and the human mind seemed to be 
 incapable of reasoning and understanding, the 
 disciples of the saint realised that the goldsmiths, 
 weavers, sculptors, painters, architects, and musi- 
 cians of the Emperor could collect the masses 
 around the churches and make them patiently 
 listen to what they could still comprehend of 
 Paul's sublime morality. When you regard St. 
 Mark or Notre Dame or any other stupendous 
 cathedral of the Middle Ages, like museums for 
 the work of art they hold, you see the luminous 
 symbol of this paradoxical alliance between victim 
 and executioner. 
 
 Only through the alliance of Paul and Nero 
 could the Church dominate the disorder of the 
 Middle Ages, and, from antiquity to the modem 
 world, carry through that formidable storm the 
 essential principles from which our civilisation 
 
Nero 141 
 
 developed: a decisive proof that, if history in its 
 details is a continuous strife, as a whole it is the 
 inevitable final reconciliation of antagonistic 
 forces, obtained in spite of the resistance of 
 individuals and by sacrificing them. 
 
Julia and Tiberius 
 
 143 
 
" IJE walked with head bent and fixed, the face 
 
 ^ * stem, a taciturn man exchanging no word 
 with those about him. . . . Augustus realised these 
 severe and haughty maimers, and more than once 
 tried to excuse them in the Senate and to the 
 people, saying that they were defects of tempera- 
 ment, not signs of a sinister spirit." 
 
 This is the picture that Suetonius gives us of 
 Tiberius, the man who, in 9 B.C., after the 
 deaBTbf Agrippa and Drusus, stood next to Au- 
 gustus, his right hand and pre-established succes- 
 sor. At that time Augustus was fifty-four years 
 old ; not an old man, but he was ill and had pre- 
 sided over the Republic for twenty-one years. 
 Many people must have asked themselves what 
 would happen if Augustus should die, or should 
 definitely retire to private life. The answer was 
 not uncertain: since Rome was engaged in the 
 conquest of Germany, the chief of the Empire 
 and of the army ought to be a valiant general 
 and a man of expert acquaintance with Germanic 
 
 affairs. Tiberius was the first general of his time 
 10 145 
 
146 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 and knew Germany and the Germans better than 
 any other Roman. 
 
 The passage from Suetonius, just quoted, in- 
 dicates that Tiberius was not altogether popular, 
 yet it was the accepted opinion that Rome and 
 Italy might well be content to rely upon so capable 
 a general and diplomat, if Augustus failed. This 
 attitude, however, changed when the death of 
 Drusus entirely removed the alternative of choice 
 between himself and Tiberius, and the latter, up 
 to that time universally admired, began to be 
 met, even among the nobility, by a strong opposi- 
 tion. How can this apparently inexplicable fact 
 be made clear? The theory of corruption so dear 
 to the ancients, which I have already explained, 
 gives us the key to the mystery. Those who 
 have been disposed to see in that theory merely 
 a plaything of poets, orators, philosophers, will 
 now realise that it had power enough to kill 
 the person and destroy the family of the first 
 citizen of the Empire. That kind of continuous 
 fear of luxury, of amusements, of prodigality, 
 on account of which the ancients called cor- 
 ruption so many things that we define as 
 progress, was not a sentiment always equally 
 alive in the mind of the multitude. The 
 Romans, like ourselves, loved to live and to enjoy ; 
 
Julia and Tiberius 147 
 
 this is so true that philosophers and legislators 
 constantly took pains to remind them of the 
 danger of allowing too much liberty to the appe- 
 tites; ,but more effective than the counsels of 
 philosophers and the threats of the law, great 
 public calamities inspired in the masses, at least 
 temporarily, a spirit of puritanism and austerity. 
 Of this the consequences of the battle of Actium 
 afforded noteworthy proof. 
 
 Those who have read the fourth volume of The 
 Greatness and Decline of Rome may perhaps 
 remember how I have described the conservative 
 and traditionalist movement of the first decade 
 of the government of Augustus. Frightened by 
 the revolution, men's minds had reverted precipi- 
 tously to the past. A new party, which one might 
 call the traditionalist, had sought to re-establish 
 the old-time order, in the state, in customs, in 
 ideas ; to combat the corruption of customs ; and 
 of this party Augustus had been the right arm. 
 Indeed, to so great an extent had this party stirred 
 up public spirit and prevailed upon those in power 
 that in 18 B.C. it succeeded in passing some great 
 social laws on luxury, on matrimony, on dress. 
 With these laws, Rome proposed to remake, by 
 terrible measures, the old, prolific, austere nobility 
 of the aristocratic era. The lex de maritandis 
 
148 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 ordinihus aimed with a thousand vexatious restric- 
 tions to constrain the nobility to marry and have 
 children; the lex sumptuaria studied to restrain 
 extravagance; the lex de aduUeriis proclaimed 
 martial law in the family, menacing an imfaith- 
 ful wife and her accomplice with exile for life and 
 the confiscation of half their substance ; legislation 
 of the harshest, this, which should scourge Rome 
 to blood, to keep her from falling anew into the 
 inveterate vices from which the civil wars were 
 bom. 
 
 The impression of the civil wars could not last 
 forever. In fact, in the decade that followed the 
 promulgation of the social laws, the puritan fer- 
 vour, which had up to that time heated all Italy, 
 began to cool. Wealth increased ; the confidence 
 that order and peace were actually re-established, 
 spread everywhere ; the generation that had seen 
 the civil wars, disappeared; peace and growing 
 prosperity stirred in the next generation a desire 
 for freedom and pleasure that would not endure 
 the narrow traditionalism and the puritanism of 
 the preceding generation ; consequently also the 
 laws of 18 B.C. became intolerable. 
 
 To imderstand this change in public spirit which 
 had such serious consequences, there is no better 
 way than by studying the most celebrated writer 
 
Julia and Tiberius 149 
 
 of this new generation, Ovid, who represents it 
 most admirably both in life and works. Ovid 
 was bom at Sulmona in 43 b.c. He was about 
 the same age as Tiberius, — of a knight's family — 
 that is, of the wealthy middle class. He was 
 destined by his father to the study of oratory 
 and jurisprudence, evidently to make a political 
 man of him, a senator, a future consul or proconsul, 
 and to contribute to the great national restoration 
 that his generation proposed to itself and of which 
 Augustus was architect, preparing a new family 
 for the political aristocracy that was governing 
 the Empire. Ovid's father had all the require- 
 ments demanded by law and custom: a consider- 
 able fortune, the half -nobility of the equestrian 
 order, an intelligent son, the means to give him 
 the necessary culture — a, favourable combination 
 of circumstances which was wholly undone by a 
 bit of imforeseen contrariety, the son's invincible 
 inclination for what his father called, with little 
 respect, a "useless study, " literature. The young 
 man had indifferently studied oratory and law, 
 gone to Rome, married, made friendships in 
 the high society of the capital, been elected to the 
 offices preceding the quasstorship ; but when the 
 time arrived for presenting himself as candidate 
 for the quasstorship itself' — that is, the time for 
 
i5o Julia and Tiberius 
 
 beginning the true curriculum of the magistracies, 
 he had declared that he would rather be a great 
 poet than a consul, and there was no persuading 
 him farther on the long road opened to political 
 ambitions. 
 
 With the episode of Julia and Tiberius in mind, 
 I have stated that Ovid's life epitomises the new 
 generation, because it shows us in action the 
 first of the forces that dissolved the aristocratic 
 government and the nobility artificially reconsti- 
 tuted by Augustus at the close of the civil wars — 
 intellectualism. The case of Ovid demonstrates 
 that intellectual culture, literature, poetry, instead 
 of being, for the Roman aristocracy, as in older 
 times, a simple ornament, secondary to politics, 
 had already a prime attraction for the man of 
 genius ; that even among the. higher classes, de- 
 voted by tradition only to military and political 
 life, there appeared, by the side of the leaders 
 in war and politics, the professional literary man. 
 The study of Ovid 's work shows something even 
 more noteworthy: that, profiting by the discords 
 in the ruling class, these literary men feared no 
 longer to express and to re-enforce the discontent, 
 the bad feeling, the aversion, that the efforts of 
 the State to re-establish a more vigorous social 
 order was rousing in one part of the public. 
 
Julia and Tiberius 151 
 
 Ovid's first important work was the Amores, 
 which was certainly out by the year 8 e.g., 
 although in a different form from that in which 
 we now have it. To understand what this book 
 really was when it was published, one must re- 
 member that it was written, read, and what is 
 more, admired, ten years after the promulgation 
 of the lex de maritandis ordinihus and of the lex 
 de adulteriis; it should be read with what remains 
 of the text of those laws in hand. 
 
 We are astonished at the book, full of excite- 
 ments to frivolity, to dissipation, to pleasure, to 
 those very activities that appeared to the an- 
 cients to form the most dangerous part of the 
 ' * corruption. ' ' Extravagances of a libertine poet ? 
 The single-handed revolt of a corrupt youth, which 
 cannot be considered a sign of the times? No. 
 If there had not been in the public at large, in the 
 higher classes, in the new generation, a general 
 sympathy with this poetry, subversive of the 
 solemn Julian laws, Ovid would never have been 
 recognised in the houses of the great, petted and 
 admired by high society. The great social laws 
 of Augustus, the publication of which had been 
 celebrated by. Horace in the Carmen Seculare, 
 wounded too many interests, tormented too 
 many selfishnesses, intercepted too many liberties. 
 
152 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 His revolutionary elegies had made Ovid famous, 
 because these interests and these selfishnesses 
 finally rebelled with the new generation, which 
 had not seen the civil wars. Other incidents before 
 and after the publication of the Amores also show 
 this reaction against the social laws. Therefore 
 Augustus proposed about this time to abolish 
 the provision of the lex de maritandis ordinibus 
 that excluded celibates from public spectacles; 
 and by his personal intervention sought to put 
 a check upon the scandalous trials for adul- 
 tery that his law had originated — ^two acts that 
 were so much admired by a part of the public 
 that statues were erected to him by popular 
 subscription. 
 
 In short, this new movement of public opinion 
 explains the opposition exerted from this time 
 on against Tiberius and makes us understand 
 how there arose the conflict in which this mysteri- 
 ous personage was to be entangled for the rest 
 of his life, and to lose, by no fault of his own, so 
 great a part of his reputation. I hope to prove 
 that the Tiberius of Tacitus and Suetonius is a 
 fantastic personality, the hero of a wretched and 
 improbable romance, invented by party hatred; 
 that Tiberius remained, as a German historian 
 has defined it, an undecipherable enigma, simply 
 
Julia and Tiberius 153 
 
 because there has never been the will to recognise 
 how much alive the aristocratic republican tra- 
 ditions still were, and what force they still exerted 
 in the State and in the family. 
 
 Tiberius was but an authentic Claudius — that 
 is, a true descendant of one of the oldest, the 
 proudest, the most aristocratic families of the 
 Roman nobility, a man with all the good qualities 
 and all the defects of the old Roman aristocracy, 
 a man who regarded things and men with the 
 eyes of a senator of the times of Scipio Africanus 
 — a livinganachronism, afossil, if you will, from a 
 by-gone age, in a world that wished to tolerate 
 no more either the vices or the virtues of the old 
 aristocracy. He thought that the Empire ought 
 to be governed by a limited aristocracy of diplo- 
 mats and warriors, rigidly authoritative, exclu- 
 sively Roman, which should know how to check 
 the general corrupting of customs, the current 
 extravagance and dissipation, beginning its task 
 by imposing upon itself an inexorable self-disci- 
 pline. Even though he belonged to the generation 
 of Ovid — to the generation that had not seen the 
 civil wars — ^Tiberius, by singular exception, kept 
 aloof from the undisciplined frivolity of his con- 
 temporaries. He desired the severe application 
 of the social laws of the year 18, as of all the 
 
154 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 traditional norms of aristocratic discipline. His 
 generation therefore soon found him an enemy, 
 especially after Drusus's death seemed to leave 
 neither doubt nor choice as to the successor of 
 Augustus. From this contemporary attitude 
 arises the tacit aversion in the midst of which, 
 after the lapse of so many centuries, we still feel 
 Tiberius living and working, an aversion which 
 steadily grows even while he renders the most 
 signal services to the Empire. 
 
 There was between him and his generation 
 irreconcilable discord. However, it is not likely 
 that this blind and secret hatred alone could have 
 seriously injured Tiberius, whose power and merits 
 were so great, if it had not been considerably 
 helped by incidents of various nature. The first 
 and most important of these was the discord that 
 had arisen, shortly after the death of Drusus, 
 between Tiberius and his wife Julia, the daughter 
 of Augustus and the widow of Agrippa. 
 
 Tiberius had married her against his will in 
 the year ii, after the death of Agrippa, by order 
 of Augustus, and had at first tried to live in accord 
 with her; the attempt was vain, and the spirits 
 of the husband and wife were soon parted in 
 fatal disagreement. "He lived at first," writes 
 Suetonius, "in harmony with Julia ; but soon grew 
 
Julia and Tiberius 155 
 
 cool toward her, and finally the estrangement 
 reached such a point after the death of their boy 
 born at Aquilea, that Tiberius lived in a separate 
 apartment" — a separation, as we would call it, 
 in "bed and board." What was the reason of 
 this discord? No ancient historian has revealed 
 it; however, we can guess with sufficient proba- 
 bility from what we know of the characters of 
 the pair and the discord that divided Roman so- 
 ciety. If Tiberius was not the monster of Capri, 
 Julia was certainly not the miserable Bacchante 
 of the scandalous Roman chronicle. Macrobius 
 has pictured her in human lights and shadows, 
 a probable image, describing her as a highly 
 cultured woman, lavish in tastes and expenditure, 
 fond of beautiful literature, of the fine arts, and 
 of the company of handsome and elegant young 
 men. She belonged to the new generation of 
 which Ovid was spokesman and poet; while 
 Tiberius represented archaic traditionalism, the 
 spirit of a past generation. 
 
 It is easy to understand how these two persons, 
 incarnating the irreconcilable opposition of two 
 epochs, two morales, two societies, of Roman 
 militarism and of Oriental culture, could not live 
 together. A man like Tiberius, severe, simple, 
 who detested frivolous pleasures, caring more for 
 
156 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 war than for society life, could not live in peace 
 with this beautiful and vivacious creature, who 
 loved luxury, prodigality, brilliant company. It 
 is not rash to suppose that the lex sumptuaria of 
 the year i8 was the first grave cause of disagree- 
 ment. Julia, given, as Macrobius describes her, 
 to profuse expenditure and pretentious elegance, 
 could not take this law seriously ; while it was the 
 duty of Tiberius, who always protested by deed as 
 by word against the barren pomp of the rich, to 
 see that his wife serve as an example of simplicity 
 to the other matrons of Rome. 
 
 Very soon there occurred an accident, not un- 
 common in unfortunate marriages, but which for 
 special reasons was, in the family of Tiberius, 
 far more than wontedly dangerous, Tacitus 
 tells us that after Julia was out of flavour with 
 Tiberius, she contracted a relation with an ele- 
 gant young aristocrat, one Sempronius Gracchus, 
 of the family of the famous tribunes. Accepting 
 as true the affirmation of Tacitus, in itself likely, 
 we can very well explain the behaviour and acts 
 of Tiberius in these years. The misdoing of Julia 
 offended not only the man and husband, but 
 placed also the statesman, the representative of 
 the traditionalist party, in the gravest perplexity. 
 
 According to the lex de aduUeriis, made by 
 
Julia and Tiberius 157 
 
 Augustus in the year 18, the husband ought 
 either to punish the unfaithful wife himself or 
 denounce her to the praetor. Could he, Tiberius, 
 provoke so frightful a scandal in the house of 
 the "First Citizen of the Republic"; drive from 
 Rome, defamed, the daughter of Augustus, the 
 most noted lady of Rome, who had so many friends 
 in all circles of its society? Suetonius speaks of 
 the disgust of Tiberius for Julia, "quam neque 
 criminari aut demittere auderet" — whom he dared 
 neither incriminate nor repudiate. On the other 
 hand, did not he, the intransigeant traditionalist, 
 who kept continually reproving the nobility for 
 their laxity in self-discipline, merit rebuke, for 
 allowing this thing to go on, not applying the 
 law? The difficulty was serious; the lex de 
 adulteriis began to be a torment to its creators. 
 Unable to separate from, unwilling to live with, 
 this woman who had traduced him and whom 
 he despised, Tiberius was reduced to maintaining 
 a merely apparent union to avoid the scandal 
 of a trial and divorce. 
 
 This proceeding, however, was an expedient 
 in that condition of things both insufficient and 
 dangerous. The discord between Tiberius and 
 Julia put into the hands of the young nobility, 
 up to that time unarmed, a terrible weapon against 
 
158 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 the illustrious general, who was, meanwhile, fight- 
 ing the Germans. The young nobility, inimical 
 to the social laws and to Tiberius, rallied about 
 Julia, and the effects of this alliance were not 
 slow in appearing. Julia had had five sons by 
 Agrippa, of whom the eldest two, Caius and 
 Lucius, had been adopted by Augustus. In the 
 year 6 B.C., the eldest, Caius, reached the age of 
 fourteen. He was therefore but a lad; notwith- 
 standing his youth, there was suddenly brought 
 forward the strange, almost incredible, proposal to 
 make a law by which he might at once be elected 
 consul for the year 754 a.u.c, when he would be 
 twenty years old. 
 
 Who made this proposal.'' Augustus, if we 
 believe Suetonius, out of excessive fondness for 
 his adopted sons. Dion, on the contrary, tells 
 these things differently. He says that from the 
 beginning Augustus opposed the law, and so leads 
 us to doubt that it was either proposed or desired 
 by that Prince. The facts are that a party in 
 Rome kept insisting till Augustus supported this 
 law with his authority, and that from the first 
 he was unwilling to be accessory to an election 
 that overturned without reason every Roman 
 constitutional right. 
 
 Who then were these strange admirers of a 
 
Julia and Tiberius 159 
 
 child of fourteen, who to make him consul did 
 not hesitate to do violence to tradition, to the 
 laws, to good sense, and, finally, to the adoptive 
 father? It was the opposition to Tiberius, the 
 party of the young nobility and Julia, who were 
 seeking a rule less severe, and, if not the abolition, 
 at least the mitigated application of the great 
 social laws. They aimed to put forward the 
 young Caius, to set him early before public atten- 
 tion, to hasten his political career, in order to 
 oppose a rival to Tiberius; to prepare another 
 collaborator and successor of Augustus, to make 
 Tiberius less indispensable and therefore less 
 powerful. 
 
 In brief, here was the hope of using against 
 Tiberius at once the maternal pride and affection 
 of Julia, the tenderness of Augustus, and the 
 popularity of the name of Caesar, which Caius 
 carried. The people had never greatly loved 
 the name of the Claudii, a haughty line of invin- 
 cible aristocrats, always hard and overbearing 
 with the poor, always opposed to the democratic 
 party. The party against Tiberius hoped that 
 when to a Claudius there should be opposed a 
 Cassar, the public spirit would revert to the 
 dazzling splendour of the name. 
 
 Now we understand why Augustus had at 
 
i6o Julia and Tiberius 
 
 first objected. The privileges that he had caused 
 to be conceded to Marcellus, to Drusus, to Tibe- 
 rius, were all of less consequence than those de- 
 manded for Caius and had all been justified either 
 by urgent needs of State, or services already 
 rendered; but how could it be tolerated that 
 without any reason, without the slightest neces- 
 sity, there should be made consul a lad of four- 
 teen, of whom it would be difficult to predict 
 even whether he would become a man of common 
 sense? Moreover Augustus could not so easily 
 bring himself to ofifend Tiberius, who would not 
 admit that the chief of the Republic should help 
 his enemies offer him so great an affront. How 
 could it be, that while he, amid fatigues and perils 
 in cold and savage regions, was fighting the Ger- 
 mans and holding in subjection the European 
 provinces, that jeunesse doree of good-for-nothings, 
 cynics, idlers, poets, which infested the new gen- 
 eration, was conniving with his wife to set against 
 him a child of fourteen? — to gain, as it were, 
 sanction from a law that the State would not be 
 safe till by the side of this Claudius should be 
 placed a Caesar, beardless and inexpert, as if the 
 name of the latter outweighed the genius and 
 experience of the former? And Augustus, the 
 head of the Republic, would he have tolerated 
 
Julia and Tiberius i6i 
 
 such an outrage? Tiberius not only resisted 
 the law but exacted the open disapproval of 
 Augustus; in fact, at the beginning, Augustus 
 stood out against it as Tiberius wished; but 
 difficulties grew by the way and became grave. 
 
 Julia and her friends knew how to dispose 
 public opinion ably in their own favour, to intrigue 
 in the Senate, to exploit the increasing unpopu- 
 larity of the social laws, of the spreading aversion 
 to Tiberius and the admiration for other mem- 
 bers of Augustus's family. The proposal to make 
 Caius consul became in a short time so popular 
 for one or another of these reasons, and as the 
 symbol of a future government less severe and 
 traditionalistic, that Augustus felt less and less 
 able to withstand the current. On the other 
 hand, to yield meant mortally to offend Tiberius. 
 Finally, as was his wont, this astute politician 
 thought to extricate himself from the difficulty by 
 a transaction and an expedient. Dion, shortly 
 after having said that Augustus finally yielded 
 to the popular will, adds that, to make Caius more 
 modest, he gave Tiberius the tribunician power 
 for five years and charged him with subduing 
 the revolt in Armenia. Augustus's idea is clear: 
 he was trying to please everybody — the partisans 
 of Caius Caesar by not opposing the law, and 
 
1 62 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 Tiberius, by giving the most splendid compensa- 
 tion, making him his colleague in place of Agrippa. 
 Unfortunately, Tiberius was not the man to 
 accept this compensation. No honour could 
 make up for the insult Augustus had done him, 
 though yielding but in part to his enemies, because 
 by so doing even Augustus had seemed to think 
 it necessary to set him beside a lad of fourteen; 
 he would go away ; they might do as they pleased 
 and charge Caius with directing the war in Ger- 
 many. Indignant at the timid opportunism of 
 Augustus, disgusted with the wife whom he could 
 neither accuse nor repudiate, Tiberius demanded 
 permission of Augustus to retire to Rodi to pri- 
 vate life, saying that he was tired and in need 
 of repose. Naturally Augustus was frightened, 
 begged and pleaded with him to remain, sent 
 his mother Livia to beseech him, but every effort 
 was futile; Tiberius was obstinate, and finally, 
 since Augustus did not permit his departure, he 
 threatened to let himself die of hunger. Augustus 
 still tried to stand firm; one day, two days, three 
 days, he let him fast without giving the reqmred 
 consent. At the end of the fourth day, Augustus 
 had to recognise that Tiberius had serious intent 
 to kill himself, and yielded. The Senate granted 
 him permission to depart; and Tiberius at once 
 
Julia and Tiberius 163 
 
 started for Ostia, "without saying a word," 
 writes Suetonius, "to those who accompanied 
 him, and kissing but a few." 
 
 It would be impossible to decide whether this 
 retaliation of Tiberius's self-love was equal to 
 the offence; and perhaps it is useless to discuss 
 the point. It is certain, however, that the conse- 
 quences of the departure of Tiberius were weighty. 
 The first result was that the party of the young 
 nobility, the party averse to the laws of the year 
 18, found itself master of the field; perhaps 
 because the opposing party lost with Tiberius 
 its most authoritative leader; perhaps because 
 Augustus, irritated against Tiberius, inclined still 
 more toward the contrary party ; perhaps because 
 public opinion judged severely the departure 
 of Tiberius, who, already little admired, became 
 decidedly unpopular. Julia and her friends 
 triumphed, and not content with having con- 
 quered, wished to domineer; shortly afterward 
 they obtained the concession of the same privi- 
 leges as those granted to Caius for his yoxmger 
 brother Lucius. At the same time, Augustus 
 prepared to make Caius and Lucius his two future 
 collaborators in place of Tiberius; Ovid set his 
 hand to a book still more scandalous and sub- 
 versive than the Amores, the Ars Amandi; public 
 
i64 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 indulgence covered with its protection all those 
 accused on grounds of the laws of the year i8 ; 
 and finally, the two boys, Caius and Lucius, be- 
 came popular, like great personages, all over 
 Italy. There have been found in different cities 
 of the peninsula inscriptions in their honour, one 
 of which, very long and curious, is at Pisa ; it is 
 full of absurd eulogies of the two lads, who had 
 as yet done nothing, good or bad. Italy must 
 have been tired enough of a too conservative 
 government, which had lasted twenty-five years, 
 of an Empire reconquered by traditional ideas, 
 if, in order to protest, it lionised the two young 
 sons of Agrippa in ways that contradicted every 
 idea and sentiment of Roman tradition. 
 
 In conclusion, the departure of Tiberius, and 
 the severe judgment the public gave it, still fur- 
 ther weakened the conservative party, already 
 for some years in decline, by a natural transfor- 
 mation of the public spirit. Perhaps the party 
 of tradition would have been entirely spent, 
 had not events soon reminded Rome that its 
 spirit was the life of the military order. The 
 departure of Tiberius, the man who represented 
 this spirit, rapidly disorganised the army and 
 the external policy of Rome. Up to that time 
 Augustus had had beside him a powerful helper — 
 
Julia and Tiberius 165 
 
 first Agrippa, afterwards Tiberius; but then he 
 found himself alone at the head of the Empire, 
 a man already well on in years ; and for the first 
 time it appeared that this zealous bureaucrat, 
 this fastidious administrator, this intellectual 
 idler, who could do an enormous amotint of work 
 on condition that he be not forced to issue from 
 his study and encounter currents of air too strong 
 for him, was insufficient to direct alone the poli- 
 tics of an immense empire, which required, in 
 addition to the sagacity of the administrator 
 and the ingenuity of the legislator, the resolute- 
 ness of the warrior and the man of action. 
 
 The State rapidly fell into a stupor. In Ger- 
 many, where it was necessary to proceed to the 
 ordering of the province, everything was sus- 
 pended; the people, apparently subdued, were 
 not bound to pay any tribute, and were left to 
 govern themselves solely and entirely by their 
 own laws — a strange anomaly in the history of 
 the Roman conquests, which only the departure 
 of Tiberius can explain. At such a distance, 
 when he was no longer counselled by Tiberius 
 who so well understood German affairs, Augustus 
 trusted no other assistants, fearing lack of zeal 
 and intelligence ; distrusting himself also, he dared 
 initiate nothing in the conquered province. The 
 
1 66 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 Senate, inert as usual, gave it not a thought. 
 So Germany remained an uncertainty, neither a 
 province nor independent, for fifteen years, a fact 
 wherein is perhaps to be found the real cause of 
 the catastrophe of Varus, which ruined the whole 
 German policy of Rome. 
 
 Furthermore, in Pannonia and Dalmatia, when 
 it was known that the most valiant general of 
 Rome was in disgrace at Rodi, the malcontents 
 took fresh courage, reopened an agitation that 
 could but terminate in a revolt, much more dan- 
 gerous than any preceding. In the Orient, Pales- 
 tine arose in 4 B.C., on the death of Herod the 
 Great, against his son, Archelaus, and against 
 the Hellenised monarchy, demanding to be made 
 a Roman province like Syria, and a frightful civil 
 war illumined with its sinister glare the cradle 
 of Jesus. The governor of Syria, Quintilius Varus, 
 threw himself into Judea and succeeded in crush- 
 ing the revolt; but Augustus, unable to bring 
 himself either to give full satisfaction to the 
 Hebrew people or to execute entirely the testa- 
 ment of Herod, decided as usual on a compromise: 
 he divided the ancient kingdom of Herod the 
 Great among three of his sons, and changed Arche- 
 laus's title of king to the more modest one of 
 ethnarch. Then new difficulties arose with the 
 
Julia and Tiberius 167 
 
 Empire of the Parthians. In short, vaguely, in 
 every part of the Empire and beyond its bor- 
 ders, there began to grow the sense that Rome 
 was again weakening; a sense of doubt due to 
 the decadence of the spirit of tradition and of the 
 party representing it; to the new spirit of the 
 new generation; and finally, to the absence of 
 Tiberius, the one capable general of the time, 
 which gradually disorganised even the western 
 armies, the best in the Empire. 
 
 This dissolution of the State naturally fed in 
 the traditionalist party the hope of reconquering. 
 Tiberius had sincere friends and admirers, es- 
 pecially among the nobility, less numerous than 
 those of Julia, but more serious, because his merits 
 were real. Many people among the higher classes 
 — even though, like Augustus, they considered 
 the obduracy of Tiberius excessive — ^thought that 
 Rome no more possessed so many examples of 
 illustrious men as to be able to retire its best 
 general at thirty-seven. Very soon there arose 
 in the circles about Augustus, in the Senate, in 
 the comitia, a bitter contention between Tiberius 's 
 friends and his enemies ; this was really a struggle 
 between the traditionalist party, which busied 
 itself conserving, together with the traditions 
 of the old Romanism, the military and political 
 
1 68 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 power of Rome, and the party of the young nobil- 
 ity, which, without heeding the external dangers, 
 wished to impel habits, ideas, the public spirit, 
 toward the freer, broader forms of the Oriental 
 civilisation, even at the risk of dissolving the 
 State and the army. Julia and Tiberius personify 
 the two parties; between them stands Augustus, 
 who ought to decide, and is more uncertain than 
 ever. Theoretically Augustus always inclined 
 more toward Tiberius, but from disgust at his 
 departure, from solicitude for domestic peace, 
 from his little sympathy with his step-son, he 
 was driven to the opposite party. 
 
 In this duel, what was the behaviour and the 
 part of Li via, the mother of Tiberius ? The ancient 
 historians tell us nothing; it is, at all events, 
 hardly probable that Livia remained an inactive 
 witness of the long struggle waged to secure the 
 return of Tiberius and his reinstatement in the 
 brilliant position once his. Moreover, Suetonius 
 says that during his entire stay at Rodi, Tiberius 
 communicated with Augustus by means of Livia. 
 At any rate, the party of Tiberius was not long 
 in understanding that he could not re-enter Rome, 
 as long as Julia was popular and most powerful 
 there ; that to reopen the gates of Rome to the 
 husband, it was necessary to drive out the wife. 
 
Julia and Tiberius 169 
 
 This was a difficult enterprise, because JuKa was 
 upheld by the party already dominant ; she had the 
 affection of Augustus ; she was the mother of Caius 
 and Lucius Caesar, the two hopes of the Republic, 
 whose popularity covered her with a respect and 
 a sympathy that made her almost invulner- 
 able. Tiberius, instead, was unpopular. How- 
 ever, there is no undertaking impossible to party 
 hate. Exasperated by the growing disfavour of 
 public opinion, the party of Tiberius decided on 
 a desperate expedient to which Tiberius himself 
 would not have dared set hand; that is, since 
 Julia had a paramour, to adopt against her the 
 weapon supplied by the lex Julia de adulteriis, 
 made by her father, and so provoke the terrible 
 scandal that tintil then every one had avoided 
 in fear. 
 
 Unfortunately, we possess too few documents 
 to write in detail the history of this dreadful epi- 
 sode; but everything becomes clear enough if 
 one sees in the ruin of Julia a kind of terrible 
 political and judicial blackmailing, tried by the 
 friends of Tiberius to remove the chief obstacle 
 to his return, and if one takes it that the friends 
 of Tiberius succeeded in procuring proofs of the 
 guilt of Julia and carried them to Augustus, not 
 as to the head of the State, but to the father. 
 
1 7° Julia and Tiberius 
 
 Dion Cassius says that " Augustus finally, although 
 tardily, came to recognise the misdeeds of his 
 daughter," which signifies that at a given mo- 
 ment, Augustus could no longer feign ignorance 
 of her sins, because the proofs were in the power 
 of irreconcilable enemies, who would have refused 
 to smother the scandal. These mortal enemies 
 of Julia could have been no other than the friends 
 of Tiberius. Julia had violated the law on adul- 
 tery made by himself; Augustus could doubt it 
 no more. 
 
 To understand well the tragic situation in 
 which Augustus was placed by these revelations, 
 one must remember various things: first that the 
 lex de aduUeriis, proposed by Augustus himself, 
 obliged the father — ^when the husband could not, 
 or would not — to pimish the guilty daughter, 
 or to denounce her to the praetor, if he had 
 not the courage to punish her himself; second, 
 that this law arranged that if the father and 
 the husband failed to fulfil their proper duty, 
 any one whoever, the first comer, might in 
 the name of public morals make the denun- 
 ciation to the praetor and stand to accuse the 
 woman and her accomplice. Tiberius, the hus- 
 band, being absent at Rodi, he, Augustus, the 
 father, must become the Nemesis of his daugh- 
 
Julia and Tiberius 171 
 
 ter — must punish her or denounce her; if not, 
 the friends of Tiberius could accuse her to the 
 praetor, hale her before the quaestor, unveil to 
 the public the shame of her private life. 
 
 What should he do? Many a father had dis- 
 dainfully refused to be the executioner of his 
 own daughter, leaving to others the grim ofHce 
 of applying the lex Julia. Could he imitate such 
 an example? He was the head of the Republic, 
 the most powerful man of the Empire, the founder 
 of a new political order; he could decide peace 
 and war, govern the Senate at his pleasure, exalt 
 or abase the powerful of the earth with a nod; 
 and exactly for this reason he dared not evade 
 the bitter task. He feared the envy, the moral 
 and levelling prejudices of the middle classes, 
 which needed every now and then to slaughter 
 in the courts some one belonging to the upper 
 classes, in order to delude themselves that justice 
 is equal for all. To him had been granted the 
 greatest privileges; but precisely on this accoimt 
 was it dangerous to try to cover his daughter 
 with a privileged protection as prey too delicate 
 for public attack. And then, if he himself gave 
 the example of disobeying his law, who would 
 observe it? The tremendous scandal would un- 
 nerve all the moral force of his legislation, which 
 
172 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 was the base of his prestige. The moment was 
 terrible. Imagine this old man of sixty-two 
 wearied by forty-four years of public life, embit- 
 tered by the difficulties that sprang up about 
 him, disquieted by the dissolution of State of 
 which he was the impotent witness, finding himself 
 all at once facing these alternatives — ^either de-„ 
 stroy his daughter, or undo all the political work 
 ^over which he had laboured for thirty years ; and 
 no temporising possible ! 
 
 Augustus was not a naturally cruel man, but 
 before these alternatives his mind seems to have 
 been for a moment convulsed by an access of 
 grief and rage, the distant echo of which has 
 come down to us. One moment, as Suetonius 
 says, he had the idea of killing Julia. Then reason, 
 pity, affection, gentler habits, prevailed. He 
 did not give the sentence of death, but he was 
 too practised a politician not to understand that 
 she could not be saved ; and as he had immolated 
 Cicero, Lepidus, Antony, so he immolated her 
 also to the necessity of preserving before Italy 
 his prestige of severe legislator and impartial 
 magistrate. To avoid the trial, he resolved to 
 punish her himself with his power of pater familias 
 according to the lex Julia, exiling her to Panda- 
 laria and announcing the divorce to her in the 
 
Julia and Tiberius 173 
 
 name of Tiberius. He then despatched to the 
 Senate a record of what he had done, and went 
 away to the country, where he remained a long 
 time, says Suetonius, seeing no one, the prey 
 to profound grief. 
 
 It seems that Julia's fall was a surprise to the 
 public. In a day it learned that the highly popu- 
 lar daughter of Augustus had been condemned 
 to exile by her father. This imexpected revelation 
 let a storm loose in the metropolis. Even though 
 there were not then published in Rome those 
 vile newspapers, the pests of modem civilisation, 
 that hunt their soldi in the mud and slime of the 
 basest human passions, the taste for scandalous 
 revelations, the envy of genius and fortune, the 
 pleasure of wreaking cruelty upon the unarmed, 
 the low delight in pouring the basest feelings 
 upon the honour of a woman abandoned by all — 
 these passions animated minds then, as they do 
 to-day ; nor were there then wanting, more than 
 now, wretches that profited by them, to gather 
 money or satisfy bad instincts, without being 
 able to dispose of a single, miserable sheet of 
 paper. On every side delators sprang up, and 
 an epidemic of slanders embittered Rome; every 
 man who had name or wealth or some relation 
 with the family of Augustus, ran the risk of being 
 
174 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 accused as a lover of Julia. Several youths of 
 high society, frightened by these charges, com- 
 mitted suicide; others were condemned. About 
 Julia were invented and spread the most atrocious 
 calumnies, which formed thereafter the basis for 
 the infamous legends that have remained in his- 
 tory attached to her name. The traditionalist 
 party naturally abetted this furor of accusations 
 and inventions, made to persuade the public that 
 a fearful corruption was hidden among the upper 
 classes and that to cure it fire and sword must 
 be used without pity. 
 
 The friends of Julia, the party of the young 
 nobility, disconcerted at first by the explosion, 
 did not delay to collect themselves and react; 
 the populace of Rome made some great demon- 
 strations in favour of Julia and demanded her 
 pardon of Augustus. Many indeed, recognising 
 that her punishment was legal, protested against 
 the ferocity of her enemies, who had not hesitated 
 to embitter with so terrible a scandal the old 
 age of Augustus; protested against the mad 
 folly of incrimination with which every part of 
 Rome was possessed. Most people turned, the 
 more envenomed, against Tiberius, attacking 
 him with renewed fury as the cause of all the 
 evil. He it was, they insisted, who had conceived 
 
Julia and Tiberius 175 
 
 the abominable scandal, willed it, imposed it 
 upon Rome and the Empire ! 
 
 If Livia and the friends of Tiberius had thought 
 to bring him in by the gate where Julia went 
 out, they were not slow in recognising themselves 
 deceived. The fall of Julia struck Tiberius on the 
 reboimd in his distant island. His unpopularity, 
 already great, grew by all the disgust that the 
 scandal about Julia had provoked, and became 
 so formidable that one day about this time the 
 inhabitants of Nimes overturned his statues. 
 It was the beginning of the Christian era, but 
 a dark silence brooded over the Palatine; the 
 defamed Julia was making her hard way to Pan- 
 dalaria; Tiberius, discredited and detested, was 
 wasting himself in inaction at Rodi; Augustus 
 in his empty house, disgusted, distrustful, half 
 paralysed by deep grief, would hear to no counsels 
 of peace, of indulgence, of reconciliation. Tiberius 
 and Julia were equally hateful to him, and as 
 he did not allow himself to be moved by the 
 friends of Julia, who did not cease to implore 
 her pardon, so he resisted the friends of Tibe- 
 rius, who tried to persuade him to reconciliation. 
 What mattered it to him if the administration of 
 the State fell to pieces on all sides; if Ger- 
 mans threatened revolt; if Rome had need of 
 
176 Julia and Tiberius 
 
 the courage, of the valour, of the experience of 
 Tiberius ? 
 
 Tiberius from his retreat in Rodi kept every one 
 in Rome afraid, beginning with Augustus. Too 
 rich, too eager now for pleasures and comforts, 
 Rome was almost disgusted with the virtues and 
 the defects that had in fact created it, and which 
 survived in Tiberius — ^aristocratic pride, the spirit 
 of rigour in authority, military valour, simplicity. 
 Peace had come, extending everywhere, with 
 wealth, the desire for enjoyment, happiness, pleas- 
 ure, freedom, loosening everywhere the firmest 
 bonds of social discipline, persuading Rome to 
 lay down the heavy armour it had worn for so 
 many centuries. 
 
 In this family quarrel, which comprises a strug- 
 gle of everlasting tendencies, Julia represented 
 the new spirit that will prevail, Tiberius, the old, 
 destined to perish; but for the time being, both 
 spirits, however opposed, were necessary; for 
 peace did not expand its gifts in the Empire 
 without the protection of the great armies that 
 fought on the Rhine and on the Danube. If the 
 spirit of peace refreshed Rome, Italy, the Pro- 
 vinces, only the old aristocratic and military 
 spirit could keep the Germans on the Rhine. As 
 in all great social conflicts, the two opposing 
 
Julia and Tiberius 177 
 
 parties were both, in a certain measure and each 
 from its own point of view, right. Just for that 
 reason, the equilibrium could be found only by 
 a continual struggle in which men on one side 
 and on the other were destined in turn to triumph 
 or fall according to the moment; a struggle in 
 which Augustus, fated to act the part of judge — 
 that is, to recognise, with a final formal sanction, 
 a sentence already pronounced by facts — ^had 
 against his will in turn to condemn some and 
 reward others. 
 
 Julia will remain at Pandalaria, and Tiberius 
 will return to Rome when the danger on the 
 Rhine becomes too threatening, yet without much 
 lessening the conclusive vengeance of Julia. That 
 will come in the long torment of the reign of 
 Tiberius; in the infamy that will pursue him to 
 posterity. After having been pitilessly hated and 
 persecuted in life, this man and this woman, who 
 had personified two social forces eternally at war 
 with each other, will both fall in death into the 
 same abyss of unmerited infamy: tragic specta- 
 cle and warning lesson on the vanity of human 
 judgments ! 
 
Wine in Roman History 
 
 179 
 
IN history as it is generally written, there are 
 to be seen only great personages and events, 
 kings, emperors, generals, ministers, wars, re- 
 volutions, treaties. When one closes a huge vol- 
 ume of history, one knows why this state made 
 a great war upon that; understands the politi- 
 cal thinking, the strategic plans, the diplomatic 
 agreements of the powerful, but would hardly 
 be able to answer much more simple questions: 
 how people ate and drank, how the warriors, 
 politicians, diplomats, were clad, and in general 
 how men lived at any particular time. 
 
 History does not usually busy itself with little 
 men and small facts, and is therefore often ob- 
 scure, unprecise, vague, tiresome. I believe 
 that if some day I deserve praise, it will be be- 
 cause I have tried to show that everything has 
 value and importance ; that all phenomena inter- 
 weave, act, and react upon each other — eco- 
 nomic changes and political revolutions, costumes, 
 ideas, the family and the state, land -holding 
 and cultivation. There are no insignificant 
 
 i8i 
 
i82 Wine in Roman History 
 
 events in history; for the great events, like re- 
 volutions and wars, are inevitably and indis- 
 solubly accompanied by an infinite number of 
 slight changes, appearing in every part of a 
 nation: if in life there are men without note, 
 and if these make up the great majority of na- 
 tions — ^that which is called the "mass" — ^there 
 is no greater mistake than to believe they are 
 extraneous to history, mere inert instruments 
 in the hands of the oligarchies that govern. 
 States and institutions rest on this nameless 
 mass, as a building rests upon its foimdations. 
 
 I mean to show you now by a typical case 
 the possible importance of these little facts, 
 so neglected in history. I shall speak to you 
 neither of proconsuls nor of emperors, neither 
 of great conquests nor of famous laws, but of 
 wine-dealers and vine-tenders, of the fortuned 
 and famous plant that from wooded moimtain- 
 slopes, mirrored in the Black Sea, began its slow, 
 triumphal spread around the globe to its twenti- 
 eth century bivouac, California. I shall show you 
 how the branches and tendrils of the plant of 
 Bacchus are entwined about the history and the 
 destiny of Rome. 
 
 For many centuries the Romans were water- 
 drinkers. Little wine was made in Italy, and 
 
Wine in Roman History 183 
 
 that of inferior quality: commonly not even the 
 rich were wont to drink it daily; many used it 
 only as medicine during illness; women were 
 never to take it. For a long time, any woman 
 in Rome who used wine inspired a sense of re- 
 pulsion, like that excited in Europe up to a 
 short time ago by any woman who smoked. At 
 the time of Polybius, that is, toward the middle 
 of the second century B.C., ladies were allowed 
 to drink only a little passum, — a kind of sweet 
 wine, or syrup, made of raisins. About the women 
 too much given to the beverage of Dionysos, 
 there were terrifying stories told. It was said, 
 for instance, that Egnatius Mecenius beat his 
 wife to death, because she secretly drank wine; 
 and that Romulus absolved him. (Pliny, Nat. 
 Hist., bk. 14, ch. 13). It was told, on the 
 word of Fabius Pictor, who mentioned it in his 
 annals, that a Roman lady was condemned by 
 the family tribunal to die of hunger, because 
 she had stolen from her husband the keys of the 
 wine-cellar. It was said the Greek judge Diony- 
 sius condemned to the loss of her dower a wife 
 who, unknown to her husband, had drunk more 
 than was good for her health: this story is one 
 which shows that women began to be allowed 
 the use of wine as a medicine. It was for a long 
 
1 84 Wine in Roman History 
 
 time the vaunt of a true Roman to despise fine 
 wines. For example, ancient historians tell of 
 Cato that, when he returned in triumph from 
 his proconsulship in Spain, he boasted of having 
 drunk on the voyage the same wine as his rowers ; 
 which certainly was not, as we should say now, 
 either Bordeaux or Champagne ! 
 
 Cato, it is true, was a queer fellow, who pleased 
 himself by throwing in the face of the young 
 nobility's incipient luxury a piece of almost bru- 
 tal rudeness; but he exaggerated, not falsified, 
 the ideas and the sentiments of Romanism. 
 At that time, it was a thing unworthy of a Roman 
 to be a practised admirer of fine wines and to 
 show too great a propensity for them. Then not 
 only was the vine little and ill cultivated in Italy, 
 but that country almost refused to admit its 
 ability to make fine wines with its grapes. As 
 wines of luxury, only the Greek were then accred- 
 ited and esteemed — and paid for, like French 
 wines to-day- but, though admiring and paying 
 well for them, the Romans, still diffident and 
 saving, made very spare use of them. LucuUus, 
 the famous conqueror of the Pontus, told how 
 in his father's house — in the house, therefore, 
 of a noble family — Greek wine was never served 
 more than once, even at the most elegant dinners. 
 
Wine in Roman History 185 
 
 Moreover, this must have been a common cus- 
 tom, because Pliny says, speaking of the begin- 
 ning of the last century of the Republic, "Tanta 
 vero vino graeco gratia erat ut singulse potiones in 
 convitu darentur " ; that is, translating literally, 
 " Greek wine was so prized that only single potions 
 ^<of it were given at a meal." You understand 
 at once the significance of this phrase; Greek 
 wine was served as to-day — ^at least on European 
 tables — Champagne is served ; it was too expen- 
 sive to give in quantity. 
 
 This condition of things began to change after 
 Rome became a world power, went outside of 
 Italy, interfered in the great affairs of the Mediter- 
 ranean, and came into more immediate contact 
 with Greece and the Orient. By a strange law 
 of correlation, as the Roman Empire spread 
 about the Mediterranean, the vineyard spread 
 in Italy ; gradually, as the world politics of Rome 
 triumphed in Asia and Africa, the grape harvest 
 grew more abundant in Italy, the consumption 
 of wine increased, the quality was refined. The 
 bond between the two phenomena — the progress 
 of conquest and the progress of vine-growing — 
 is not accidental, but organic, essential, intimate. 
 As, little by little, the policy of expansion grew, 
 wealth and culture increased in Rome ; the spirit 
 
i86 Wine in Roman History 
 
 of tradition and of simplicity weakened; luxury 
 spread, and with it the appetite for sensations, 
 including that of the taste for intoxicating 
 beverages. 
 
 We have but to notice what happens about 
 us in the modem world — ^when industry gains 
 and wealth increases and cities grow, men drink 
 more eagerly and riotously inebriating beverages 
 — to understand what happened in Italy and in 
 Rome, as gradually wars, tribute, blackmailing 
 politics, pitiless usury, carried into the peninsula 
 the spoils of the Mediterranean world, riches of 
 the most numerous and varied forms. The old- 
 time aversion to wine diminished; men and wo-, 
 men, city-dwellers and countrymen, learned to 
 drink it. The cities, particularly Rome, no longer 
 confined themselves to slaking their thirst at 
 the foimtains; as the demand and the price for 
 wine increased, the land-owners in Italy grew 
 interested in offering the cup of Bacchus, and 
 as they had invested capital in vineyards, they 
 were drawn on by the same interest to excite 
 ever the more the eagerness for wine among the 
 multitude, and to perfect grape-culture and in- 
 crease the crop, in imitation of the Greeks. The 
 wars and military expeditions to the Orient not 
 only carried many Italians, peasants and propria- 
 
Wine in Roman History 187 
 
 tors, into the midst of the most celebrated vine- 
 yards of the world, but also transported into 
 Italy slaves and numerous Greek and Asiatic 
 peasants who knew the best methods of cultivat- 
 ing the vine, and of making wines like the Greek, 
 just as the peasants of Piedmont, of the Veneto, 
 and of Sicily, have in the last twenty years de- 
 veloped grape-culture in Timis and California. 
 
 Pliny, who is so rich in valuable information 
 on the agricultural and social advances of Italy, 
 tells us that it opened its hills and plains to 
 the triumphal entrance of Dionysus between 
 130 and 120 B.C., about the time that Rome 
 entered into possession of the kingdom of Per- 
 gamus, the largest and richest part of Asia Minor, 
 left to it by bequest of Attalus. Thenceforward, 
 for a century and a half, the progress of grape- 
 growing continued without interruption; every 
 generation poured forth new capital to enlarge 
 the inheritance of vineyards already grown and 
 to plant new ones. As the crop increased, the 
 effort was redoubled to widen the sale, to entice 
 a greater number of people to drink, to put the 
 Italian wines by the side of the Greek. 
 
 At the distance of centuries, these vine-growing 
 interests do not appear even in history ; but they 
 actually were a most important factor in the 
 
1 88 Wine in Roman History- 
 Roman poKcy, a force that helps us explain seve- 
 ral main facts in the history of Rome. For ex- 
 ample, vineyards were one of the foundations 
 of the imperial authority in Italy. That political 
 form which was called with Augustus the prin- 
 cipality, and from which was evolved the mon- 
 archy, would not have been fotmded if in the 
 last century of the Republic all Italy had not 
 .been covered with vineyards and olive orchards. 
 The affirmation, put just so, may seem strange 
 and paradoxical, but the truth of it will be easy 
 to prove. 
 
 The imperial authority was gradually consoli- 
 dated, because, beginning with Augustus, it 
 succeeded in pacifying Italy after a century of 
 commotion and civil wars and of foreign inva- 
 sions, to which the secular institutions of the 
 Republic had not known how to oppose sufficient 
 defence; so that, little by little, right or wrong, 
 the authority of the Princeps, as supreme magis- 
 trate, and the power of the Julian-Claudian house, 
 which the supreme magistrate had organised, 
 seemed to the Italian multitude the stable foun- 
 dation of peace and order. But why was Italy, 
 beginning with the time of C^sar, so despe- 
 rately anxious for peace and order ? It would be 
 a mistake to see in this anxiety only the natural 
 
Wine in Roman History 189 
 
 desire of a nation, worn by anarchy, for the con- 
 ditions necessary to a common social existence. 
 The contrast of two episodes will show you that 
 during the age of C^sar annoyance at disorder 
 and intolerance of it had for a special reason 
 increased in Italy. Toward the end of the third 
 century b.c, Italy had borne on its soil for about 
 seventeen years the presence of an army that 
 went sacking and burning everywhere — the army 
 of Hannibal — ^without losing composure, await- 
 ing with patience the hour for torment to cease. 
 A century and a half later, a Thracian slave, 
 escaping from the chain-gang with some com- 
 panions, overran the country, — ^and Italy was 
 frightened, implored help, stretched out its arms 
 to Rome more despairingly than it had ever done 
 in all the years of Hannibal. 
 
 What made Italy so fearful? Because in the 
 time of Hannibal it had chiefly cultivated cereals 
 and pastured cattle, while in the days of Sparta- 
 cus a considerable part of its fortune was invested 
 in vineyards and olive groves. In pastoral and 
 grain regions the invasion of an army does rela- 
 tively little damage ; for the cattle can be driven 
 in advance of the invader, and if grain fields are 
 burned, the harvest of a year is lost but the 
 capital is not destroyed. If, instead, an army 
 
iQo Wine in Roman History 
 
 cuts and bums olive orchards and vineyards, 
 which are many years in growing, it destroys an 
 immense accumulated capital. Spartacus was 
 not a new Hannibal, he was something much 
 more dangerous; he was a new species of Phyl- 
 loxera or of Mosca olearia in the form of brig- 
 and bands that destroyed vines and olives, the 
 accumulated capital of centuries. Whence, the 
 emperor became gradually a tutelary deity of 
 the vine and the olive, the fortxme of Italy. It 
 was he who stopped the barbarians still restless 
 and turbulent on the frontiers of Italy, hardly 
 over the borders; it was he who kept peace 
 within the coimtry between social orders and 
 political parties ; it was he who looked after the 
 maintenance and guarding of the great highways 
 of the peninsula, periodically clearing them of 
 robbers and the evil-disposed that infested them ; 
 and the land-owners, who held their vineyards and 
 olive groves more at heart than they did the 
 great republican traditions, placed the image of 
 the Emperor among those of their Lares, and 
 venerated him as they had earlier revered the 
 Senate. 
 
 Still more curious is the influence that this 
 development of Italian viticulture exercised on 
 the political life of Rome; for example, in the 
 
Wine in Roman History 191 
 
 barbarous provinces of Europe, wine was an 
 instrument of Romanisation, the effectiveness of 
 which has been too much disregarded. In Gaul, 
 in Spain, in Helvetia, in the Danube provinces, 
 Rome taught many things : law, war, construction 
 of roads and cities, the Latin language and lit- 
 erature, the literature and art of Greece; more, 
 it also taught to drink wine. Whoever has read 
 the Commentaries of Cassar will recall that, on 
 several occasions, he describes certain more bar- 
 barous peoples of Gaul as prohibiting the impor- 
 tation of wine because they feared they would 
 unnerve and corrupt themselves by habitual 
 drunkenness. Strabo tells us of a great Gaeto- 
 Thracian empire that a Gaetic warrior, Borebiste 
 by name, foimded in the time of Augustus beyond 
 the Danube, opposite Roman possessions; while 
 this chieftain sought to take from Greek and 
 Latin civilisation many useful things, he severely 
 prohibited the importation of wine. This fact 
 and others similiar, which might be cited, show 
 that these primitive folk, exactly like the Romans 
 of more ancient times, feared the beverage which 
 so easily intoxicates, exactly as in China all wise 
 people have always feared opium as a national 
 scourge, and so many in France would to-day 
 prohibit the manufacture of absinthe. 
 
192 Wine in Roman History 
 
 This hesitation and fear disappeared among 
 the Gauls, after their country was annexed to 
 the Empire ; disappeared or was weakened among' 
 all the other peoples of the Danube and Rhine 
 regions, and even in Germany, when they fell 
 under Roman dominion; even also while they 
 preserved independence, as little by little the 
 Roman influence intensified in strength. By 
 example, with the merchants, in literature, Rome 
 poured out everywhere the ruddy and perfumed 
 drink of Dionysos, and drove to the wilds and 
 the villages, remote and poor, the national mead 
 — the beverage of fermented barley akin to mod- 
 em beer. 
 
 The Italian proprietors who were enlarging 
 their vineyards — especially those of the valley 
 of the Po, where already at the time of Strabo 
 the grape-crop was very abundant — soon learned 
 that beyond the Alps lived numerous customers. 
 Under Augustus, Aries was already a large mar- 
 ket for wines, both Greek and Italian; during 
 the same period, there passed through Aquileia 
 and Leibach considerable trade in Italian wine 
 with the Danube regions. In the Roman castles 
 along the Rhine, among the multitudes of Ital- 
 ians who followed the armies, there was not 
 wanting the wine-dealer who sought with his 
 
Wine in Roman History 193 
 
 liquor to infuse into the torpid blood of the bar- 
 barian a ray of southern warmth. Everywhere 
 the Roman influence conquered national tradi- 
 tions ; wine reigned on the tables of the rich as the 
 lordly beverage, and the more the Gauls, the Pan- 
 nonians, the Dalmatians, drank, the more money 
 Italian proprietors made from their vineyards. 
 
 I have said that Rome diffused at once its 
 wine and its literature: it also diffused its wine 
 through its literature, a fact upon which I should 
 like to dwell a moment, since it is odd and inter- 
 esting for diverse reasons. We always make a 
 mistake in judging the great literary works of 
 the past. Two or three centuries after they were 
 written, they serve only to bring a certain de- 
 light to the mind; consequently, we take for 
 granted they were written only to bring us this 
 delight. On the contrary, almost all literary 
 works, even the greatest, had at first quite an- 
 other office i they served to spread or to counter- 
 act among the author's contemporaries certain 
 ideas and sentiments that the interests of certain 
 directing forces favoured or opposed ; indeed very 
 often the authors were admired and remunerated 
 far more for these services rendered to their con- 
 temporaries than for the lofty beauty of the lit- 
 erary works themselves. 
 
 13 
 
u- 
 
 194 Wine in Roman History 
 
 This is the case with the odes of Horace. To 
 understand all that they meant to say to con- 
 temporaries, one must imagine Roman society 
 as it was then, hardly out of a century of con- 
 quests and revolutions, in disorder, imbalanced, 
 and still crude, notwithstanding the luxuries 
 and refinements superficially imitated from the 
 Orient - a society eage£_to enjoy, yet still ill edu- 
 cated to exercise upon itself that discipline of 
 good taste, without which civilisation and its 
 pleasures aggravate more than restrain the 
 innate brutality of men. During the first period 
 of peace, arrived after so great disturbance, 
 that poetry so perfect in form, which analysed 
 and described all the most exquisite delights of 
 sense and soul, infused a new spirit of refinement 
 into habits, and co-operated with laborious ed- 
 ucation in teaching even the stem conquerors 
 of the world to enjoy all the pleasures of civili- 
 sation, alike literature and love, the luxury of 
 the city and the restfulness of the villa, fraternal 
 friendship and good cookery. It taught, too — 
 this master poetry of the senses — to enjoy wine, 
 to use the drink of Dionysos not to slake the 
 thirst, but to colour, with an intoxication now 
 soft, now strong, the most diverse emotions; the 
 sadness of memories, the tendernesses of friend- 
 
Wine in Roman History 195 
 
 ship, the transports of love, the warmth of the 
 quiet house, when without the furious storm and 
 the bitter cold stiffen the universe of nature. 
 
 Jn the poetry of Horace, therefore, wine ap- 
 pears as a proteiform god, which penetrates not 
 only the tissues of the body but also the inmost 
 recesses of the mind and aids it in its every con- 
 tingency, sad or gay. Wine consoles in ill fortime 
 (i., 7), suffuses the senses with imiversal oblivion, 
 frees from anxiety and the weariness of care, fills 
 the empty hours, and warms away the chill of 
 winter (i., 9). But the wine that has the power 
 to infuse gentle forgetfulness into the veins, has 
 also the contrasting power of rousing lyric fer- 
 vour in the spirit, the fervour heroic, divining, 
 mystic (iii., 2). Finally, wine is also a source 
 of power and heroism, as well as of joy and sen- 
 suous delight; a principle of civilisation and of 
 progress (ii., 14). 
 
 I wish I could repeat to you all the Dionysic 
 verse of this old poet from Venosa, whose sub- 
 jects and motives, even though expressed in the 
 choicest forms, may seem common and conven- 
 tional in our time and to us, among whom for 
 centuries the custom of drinking wine daily 
 with meals has been a general habit. But these 
 poems had a very different significance when they 
 
196 Wine in Roman History 
 
 were written, in that society in which many did 
 not dare drink wine commonly, considering it 
 as a medicine, or as a beverage injurious to the 
 health, or as a luxury dangerous to morals and 
 the purse; in that time when entire nations, 
 like Gaul, hesitated between the invitations of 
 the ruddy vine-crowned Bacchus, come with his 
 legions victorious, and the desperate supplica- 
 tions of Cervisia, the national mead, pale and 
 fleeing to the forests. In those times and among 
 those men, Horace with his dithyrambics affected 
 not only the spirit but the will, uniting the subtle 
 suggestion of his verses to all the other incentives 
 and solicitations that on every side were persuad- 
 ing men to drink. He corroded the ancient Italian 
 traditions, which opposed with such repugnance 
 and so many fears the efforts of the vintners 
 and the vineyard labourers to sell wine at a high 
 price I in this way he rendered service to Italian 
 viticulture. 
 
 The books of Horace, while he was still living, 
 became what we might call school text-books; 
 that is, they were read by young students, which 
 must have increased their influence on the mind. 
 Jmagine that to-day a great European poet should 
 describe and extol in magnificent verses the sen- 
 suous delight of smoking opium ; should deify, in 
 
Wine in Roman History 197 
 
 a mythology rich in imagery, the inebriating vir- 
 tues of this product. Imagine that the verses 
 of this poet were read in the schools; you may 
 then by comparison picture to yourself the action 
 of the poems of Horace. 
 
 The political and military triumph of Rome in 
 the Mediterranean world signified therefore the 
 world triumph of wine. So true is this, that in 
 Europe and America to-day the sons of Rome 
 drink wine as their national daily beverage. 
 The Anglo-Saxons and Germans drink it in the 
 same way as the Romans of the second century 
 B.C., on formal occasions, or as a medicine. When 
 you see at an European or American table the 
 gold or the ruby of the fair liquor gleaming in 
 the glasses, remember that this is another inher- 
 itance from the Roman Empire and an ultimate 
 effect of the victories of Rome; that probably 
 we should drink different beverages if Cassar 
 had been overcome at Alesia or if Mithridates 
 had been able decisively to reconquer Asia Minor 
 from Rome. It astonishes you to see between 
 politics and enology, between the great historical 
 events and the lot of a himible plant, so close a 
 bond. 
 
 I can show you another aspect of this phe- 
 nomenon, even stranger and more philosophical. 
 
198 Wine in Roman History 
 
 I have already said that at the beginning of the 
 first century before Christ, although Italy had 
 already planted many vineyards and gathered 
 generous crops, Italian wines were still little 
 sought after, while the contrary was true of the 
 Greek. Pliny writes : 
 
 The wines of Italy were for long despised. . . . 
 Foreign wines had great vogue for some time even 
 after the consulate of Opimius [121 b.c], and up 
 to the times of our grandfathers, although then Fa- 
 lernian was already discovered. 
 
 In the second half of the last century of the Re- 
 pubHc and the first half of the first century B.C., 
 this condition of things changed; Italian wines 
 rose to great fame and demand, and took from 
 the Greek the pre-eminence they so long had 
 held. Finally, this pre-eminence formed one of 
 the spoils of world conquest, and that not one of 
 the meagrest. Pliny, writing in the second half 
 of the first century, says (bk. 14, ch. 11) : 
 
 Among the eighty most celebrated qualities of wine 
 made in all the world, Italy makes about two thirds ; 
 therefore in this it outdoes other peoples. 
 
 The first wines that came into note seem to have 
 been those of southern Italy, especially^Falemian, 
 and Julius Caesar seems to have done much to 
 
Wine in Roman History 199 
 
 make it known. Pliny tells us (bk. 14, ch. 15) 
 that, in the great popular banquet offered to cele- 
 brate his triumph after his return from Egypt, 
 he gave to every group of banqueters a cask of 
 Chian and an amphora of Falemian, and that in 
 his third consulate he distributed four kinds of 
 wine to the populace, Lesbian, Chian, Falernian, 
 and Mamertine; two Greek qualities and two 
 Italian. It is evident that he wished officially 
 to recognise national wines as equal to the foreign, 
 in favour of Italian vintners ; so that Julius Caesar, 
 that universal man, has a place not only in the 
 history of the great Italian conquests, but also 
 in that of Italian viticulture. 
 
 The wines of the valley of the Po were not long 
 in making place for themselves after those of 
 southern Italy. We know that Augustus drank 
 only Rhetian wine; that is, of the Valtellina, 
 one of the valleys famous also to-day for several 
 delicious wines ; we know that Livia drank Istrian 
 wine. 
 
 I have said that Italy exported much wine to 
 Gaul, to the Danube regions, and to Germany? 
 to this may be added another remark, both 
 curious and interesting. The Periplus of the 
 Erytrian Sea, attributed to Arrianus, a kind of 
 practical manual of geography, compiled in the 
 
200 Wine in Roman History 
 
 second century a.d., tells us that in that century- 
 Italian wine was exported as far as India; so 
 far had its fame spread ! There is no doubt that 
 the wealth in the first and second century a.d., 
 which flowed for every section of Italy, came in 
 part from the flourishing vineyards planted upon 
 its hills and plains; and that the Italians, who 
 had gone to the Orient for reasons political and 
 financial, had fallen upon yet greater fortune 
 in contrabanding Bacchus from the superb vine- 
 yards of the .((Egean islands, and transporting him 
 to the hills of Italy ; a new seat whereon the capri- 
 cious god of the vine rested for two centuries, until 
 he took again to wandering, and crossed the Alps. 
 We may at this juncture ask ourselves if this 
 enologic pre-eminence of Italy was the result 
 only of a greater skill in cultivating the vine and 
 pressing the grapes. I think not. It does not 
 seem that Italy invented new methods of wine- 
 making; it appears, instead, that it restricted 
 itself to imitating what the Greeks had originated. 
 On the other hand, it is certain, at least in north- 
 em and central Italy, that, although the vine 
 grows, it does so less spontaneously and prosper- 
 ously than in the ^gean islands, Greece, and 
 Asia Minor, because the former regions are rela- 
 tively too cold. 
 
Wine in Roman History 201 
 
 The great fame of the Italian wines had another 
 cause, a political: the world power and prestige 
 of Rome. This psychological phenomenon is 
 found in every age, among all peoples, and is one 
 of the most important and essential in all history. 
 What is beautiful and what is ugly? What is 
 good and what is bad? What is true and what 
 is false ? In every period men must so distinguish 
 between things, must adopt or repudiate certain 
 ideas, practise or abandon certain habits, buy 
 certain objects and refuse others; but one should 
 not believe that all peoples make these discern- 
 ments spontaneously, according to their natural 
 inclination. It always happens that some nations 
 succeed, by war, or money, or culture, in per- 
 suading the lesser peoples about them that they 
 are superior ; and strong in this admiration, they 
 impose upon their susceptible neighbours, by a 
 kind of continuous suggestion, their own ideas 
 as the truest, their own customs as the noblest, 
 their own arts as the most perfect. 
 
 For this reason chiefly, wars have often dis- 
 tant and complicated repercussions on the habits, 
 the ideas, the commerce of nations. War, to 
 which so many philosophers would attribute a 
 divine spirit, so many others a diabolic, appears 
 to the historian as above all a means — allow me 
 
202 Wine in Roman History 
 
 the phrase, a bit frivolous, but graphic — of noisy 
 reclame, advertisement for a people; because, 
 although a more civilised people may be conquered 
 by one more barbarous, less cultured, less moral ; 
 although, also, the superiority in war may be 
 relative, and men are not on the earth merely 
 to give each other blows, but to work, to study, 
 to know, to enjoy; yet the majority of men are 
 easily convinced that he who has won in a war 
 is in everything, or at least in many things, su- 
 perior to him who has lost. So it happened, for 
 example, after the late Franco-Prussian War, that 
 i not only the armies organised or reorganised after 
 / 1870 imitated even the German uniform, as they 
 * had earlier copied the French, but in politics, 
 science, industry, even in art, everything German 
 was more generously admired. Even the consump- 
 tion of beer heavily increased in the wine countries, 
 and under the protection of the Treaty of Frank- 
 furt, the god Gambrinus has made some audacious 
 sallies into the territories sacred to Dionysos. 
 
 The same thing occurred in regard to wine in 
 the ancient world. Athens and Alexander the 
 Great had given to Greek wine the widest reputa- 
 tion, all the peoples of the Mediterranean world 
 being persuaded that that was the best of all. 
 » Then the centre of power shifted to the west, 
 
Wine in Roman History 203 
 
 toward the city built on the banks of the Tiber, 
 and little by little as the power of Rome grew, the 
 reputation of its wine increased, while that of 
 Greece declined ■ until, finally, with world empire, 
 Italy conquered pre-eminence in the wine market, 
 and held it with the Empire; for while Italy was 
 lord, Italian wine seemed most excellent and was 
 paid for accordingly. 
 
 This propensity of minor or subject peoples to 
 imitate those dominant or more famous, is the 
 greatest prize that rewards the pre-eminent for 
 the fatigue necessary to conquer that place of 
 honour | it is the reason why cultured and civil- 
 ised nations ought naturally to seek to preserve 
 a certain political, economic, and military suprem- 
 acy, without which their intellectual superiority 
 would weaken or at least lose a part of its value. 
 The human multitude in the vast world are not 
 yet so intelligent and refined as to prize that 
 which is beautiful and grand for its own sake; 
 and they are readily induced to admire as excel- 
 lent what is but mediocre, if behind it there is 
 a force to be feared or to impose it. Indeed, we 
 may observe in the modem world a phenomenon 
 analogous to that in historic Italy. What, in 
 succeeding centuries, have been the changes in 
 the enologic superiority conquered by Rome? 
 
204 Wine in Roman History 
 
 Naturally I cannot recount the whole story, al- 
 though it would be interesting; but will only 
 observe that contemporary civilisation confirms 
 the law by which predominance in the Latin 
 world and the pre-eminence of wine are indissolu- 
 bly bound together in history. 
 
 Paris is the modem Rome, the metropolis of 
 the Latin world. France continues, as far as can 
 be done in modem times, the ancient sway of 
 Rome, irradiating round so much of the globe, 
 by commerce, literature, art, science, industry, 
 dominance of political ideas, the influence of 
 the Latin world, making tributaries to Latin 
 culture of barbarous peoples, and nations too 
 yoimg for leadership or grown too old ; and France 
 has inherited the pre-eminence in wines, although 
 it lies at the farthest confines of the vine-bearing 
 zone, beyond which the tree of Bacchus refuses 
 to live. Do you realise that in all the wide belt 
 of earth where vineyards flourish, only the dry 
 hills of Champagne ripen the delicious effervescent 
 wine that refigures in modem civilisation — at 
 least for those who are fond of wine — the nectar 
 of the gods? And this, while effervescent wines 
 are made in innumerable parts of the world and 
 many are so good that one wonders if it were not 
 possible for them, manufactured with care, placed 
 
Wine in Roman History 205 
 
 in sightly bottles, and sold at as high a price as 
 the most famous French Champagne, to dispute 
 a part of the admiration that the devotees of 
 Bacchus render to the French wine. Ah, they 
 do not scintillate before the eyes of the world 
 as symbols of gay intoxication like the others, 
 for through those bottles passes no ray of the 
 glory and prestige of France! An historian fond 
 of paradoxes might affirm, and with great likeli- 
 hood, what does not appear at first glance: that 
 the great brands of French Champagne would not 
 be sold so dear if the French Revolution had been 
 suppressed by the European coalition, and if 
 France, overcome in the terrible trial, had been 
 enchained by the absolute monarchies of Europe 
 like a dangerous beast. It would even be possible 
 to declare that the reputation of Champagne is 
 rooted, not only in the ground where the grapes 
 are cultivated, and preserved in the vast cellars 
 where the precious crops are stored, but in all 
 the historic tradition of France, in all that which 
 has given France worldly glory and power: the 
 victorious wars, the distant conquests, the colo- 
 nies, the literature, the art, the science, the money 
 capital, and the spirit — cosmopolitan, expansive, 
 dynamic — of its history. It would be possible to 
 declare that it makes and pours into all the world 
 
2o6 Wine in Roman History 
 
 its precious wine by that same virtue, intimate, 
 national, and historic, by which it created the 
 encyclopaedia and made the Revolution, let Napo- 
 leon loose on Europe and foimded the Empire, 
 wrote so many famous books and built on the 
 banks of the Seine the marvellous universal city, 
 where all the forces of modem civilisation are gath- 
 ered together and hold each other in equilibrium: 
 aristocracy and democracy, the cosmopolite spirit 
 and the spirit of nationality, money and science, 
 war and fashion, art and religion. If France had 
 not had its great history, Champagne would have 
 remained an effervescing wine of modest house- 
 hold use that the peasants place every year in 
 barrels for their own family consumption or to 
 sell in the vicinity of the city of Rheims. 
 
Social Development of the 
 Roman Empire, 
 
 907 
 
A UGUSTUS died the twenty-third of August 
 ''*■ of the year 14 a.d., saying to Livia, as she 
 embraced him: "Adieu, Livia, remember our 
 long life." Suetonius adds that, before dying, 
 he had asked the friends who had come to salute 
 him, if he seemed to them *'mimum vitcB com- 
 mode transegisse" — ^to have acted well his life's 
 comedy. In this famous phrase many historians 
 have seen a confession, an acknowledgment of 
 the long r61e of deceit that the unsurpassable 
 actor had played to his public. What a mistake ! 
 If Augustus did pronounce that famous sentence, 
 he meant to say quite another thing. An erudite 
 German has demonstrated with the help of many 
 texts that the ancient writers, and especially 
 the stoic philosophers, commonly compared life 
 to a theatrical representation, divided into differ- 
 ent acts and with an inevitable epilogue, death, 
 without intending to say that it was a thing little 
 serious or not true. They only meant that life is 
 an action, which has a natural sequence from 
 
 beginning to end, like a theatrical representation. 
 14 209 
 
2IO Social Development of 
 
 There is then no need to translate the expression 
 of Augustus "the play" — that is, the deceit — "is 
 ended," but rather "the drama" — ^the work com- 
 mitted by destiny — "is finished." 
 
 The drama was ended, and what a drama! 
 It is difficult to find in history a longer and more 
 troubled career than that known by Augustus 
 for nearly sixty years, from the far-away days 
 when, young, handsome, full of ambition and 
 daring, he had come to Rome, throwing himself 
 head first into the frightful turmoil let loose 
 by the murder of Caesar, to that tranquil death, 
 the death of a great wise man, in the midst of 
 the pax Romana, now spread from end to end 
 of the Empire! After so many tragic catastro- 
 phies had struck his class and his family, Euthan- 
 asia — ^the death of the happy — descended for the 
 first time since the passing of LucuUus, to close 
 the eyes of a great Roman. 
 
 There is no better means of giving an idea 
 of the mission of the Roman Empire in the world 
 than to summarise the life and work of this 
 famous personage. Augustus has been in our 
 century somewhat the victim of Napoleon I. The 
 extraordinary course of events at the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth century made so vivid an 
 impression on succeeding generations, that for 
 
The Roman Empire 211 
 
 the whole of the century people have been able 
 to admire only the great agitators, men whose 
 lives are filled with storm and clamorous action. 
 Compared with that of Napoleon or of Caesar, 
 the figure of Augustus is simple and colourless. 
 The Roman peace, in the midst of which he died, 
 was his work only very indirectly. Augustus 
 had wearied his whole life in reorganising the 
 finances and the army, in crushing the revolts of 
 . the European provinces, in defending the bound- 
 aries of the Rhine and the Danube, in making 
 effective in Rome, as far as he could, the old 
 aristocratic constitution. All intent on this serv- 
 ice, a serious and difficult one, he never dreamed 
 of regenerating the Empire by a powerful ad- 
 ministration. Even if he had wished it, he would 
 not have had the means — men and money. 
 
 For the past century, the vastness and power 
 of the administration that governed the Empire has 
 been greatly admired. Without discussing many 
 things possible on this point, it must be observed 
 that this judgment does not apply to the times of 
 Augustus and Tiberius, because then this admin- 
 istration did not exist. During the first fifty 
 years of the Empire, the provinces were all gov- 
 erned, as under the Republic, by proconsuls or 
 propraetors, each accompanied by a quaestor. 
 
212 Social Development of 
 
 a few subordinate officials, freedmen, friends, and 
 slaves. A few dozen of men governed the pro- 
 vinces, as vast as states. Augustus added to this 
 rudimentary administration but one organ, the 
 procurator, chosen from freedmen or knights, 
 charged with overseeing the collection of tribute 
 and expenses; that is, caring for the interests, 
 not of the provinces, but of Rome. Consequently, 
 the government was weak and inactive in all the 
 provinces. 
 
 Whoever fancies the government of Rome 
 modelled after the type of modem governments, 
 invading, omnipotent, omnipresent, deceives him- 
 self. There were sent into the provinces nobles 
 belonging to rich and noted families, who had 
 therefore no need to rob the subjects too much; 
 and these men ruled, making use of the laws, 
 customs, institutions, families of nobles, of each 
 place, exactly as England now does in many parts 
 of its Empire. As in general these governors 
 were not possessed of any great activity, they 
 did not meddle much in the internal affairs of 
 the subject peoples. To preserve the unity of 
 the Empire and the supremacy of Italy against 
 all enemies, within and without ; to exploit reason- 
 ably this supremacy ; for the rest, to let every 
 people live as best pleased it : such was the policy 
 
The Roman Empire 213 
 
 of Augustus and of Tiberius, the policy of the first 
 century a.d. In short, this was but the idea of 
 the old aristocratic party, adapted to the new 
 times. 
 
 So the Roman Government gave itself little 
 concern at this time for the provinces, nor did 
 it build in them any considerable public work. 
 It did not construct roads, nor canals, nor har- 
 bours, except when they were necessary to the 
 metropolis ; for example, Agrippa made the net- 
 work of Gallic roads; Augustus opened the first 
 three great highways that crossed the Alps. It 
 would be a mistake to suppose that these im- 
 portant constructions were designed to favour 
 the progress of Gallic commerce ; they were stra- 
 tegic highways made to defend the Rhine. As 
 gradually Gaul grew rich, Rome had to recognise / 
 that the weak garrisons, set apart in the year 27 ^ 
 for the defence of the Rhine and the Danube, 
 were insufficient. It would have been necessary 
 to increase the army, but the finances were in 
 bad condition. Augustus then thought to base 
 defence on the principle that the immense fron- 
 tiers could not all be assailed at the same time, 
 and therefore he constructed some great military 
 roads across the Alps and Gaul, to be able to col- 
 lect the soldiery rapidly from all parts of the 
 
214 Social Development of 
 
 Empire at any point menaced, on the Rhine or 
 on the Danube. 
 
 The imperial policy of Augustus and that of 
 Tiberius, who applied the same principles with 
 still greater vigour, was above all a negative policy. 
 Accordingly, it could please only those denying 
 as useful to progress another kind of men, the 
 great agitators of the masses. Shall we therefore 
 conclude that Augustus and Tiberius were use- 
 less? So doing, we should run the risk of mis- 
 imderstanding all the history of the Roman con- 
 quest. By merely comprehending the value of 
 the apparent inactivity of Augustus and Tiberius, 
 one can understand the essence of the policy 
 of world expansion initiated by the Roman aristo- 
 cracy after the Second Punic War. At the begin- 
 ning, this policy was pre-eminently destructive. 
 EveriTwhere Rome either destroyed or weakened, 
 not nations or peoples, but republics, monarchies, 
 theocracies, principalities — ^that is, the political 
 superstructures that framed the different states, 
 great or small; everywhere it put in place of 
 these superstructures the weak authority of 
 its governors, of the Senate, of its own prestige ; 
 everywhere it left intact or gave greater freedom 
 to the elementary forms of human association, 
 the family, the tribe, the city. 
 
The Roman Empire 215 
 
 So for two centuries Rome continued in Orient 
 and Occident to suppress bureaucracies, to dis- <^ 
 miss or reduce armies, to close royal palaces, 
 to limit the power of priestly castes or republican 
 oligarchies, substituting for all these complicated 
 organisations a proconsul with some dozens of 
 vicegerent secretaries and attendants. The last 
 enterprise of this policy, which I should be tempted 
 to call "state-devouring," was the destruction 
 of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, in Egypt, With- 
 out doubt, the suppression of so many states, 
 continued for two centuries, could not be accom- 
 plished without terrible upheavals. It would be 
 useless to repaint here the grim picture of the 
 last century of the Republic- sufficient to say, 
 the grandiosity of this convulsion has hindered 
 most people from seeing that the state-devouring 
 policy of Rome jncluded in itself, by the side 
 of the forces of dissolution, beneficent, creative 
 forces, able to bring about a new birth. If this 
 policy had not degenerated into an unbridled 
 sacking, it could have effectuated everywhere 
 notable economies in the expenses of govern- 
 ment that were borne by the poorer classes, 
 suppressing as it did so many armies, courts, 
 bureaucracies, wars. It is clear that Rome would 
 have been able to gather in on all sides, especially 
 
2i6 Social Development of 
 
 in the Orient, considerable tribute, merely by 
 taking from the various peoples much less than 
 the cost of their preceding monarchies and con- 
 tinuous wars. Moreover, Rome established with 
 the conquests throughout the immense Empire 
 what we would call a r6gime of free exchange; 
 made neighbours of territories formerly separated 
 by constant wars, unsafe communication, and 
 international anarchy; and rendered possible 
 the opening up of mines and forests hitherto 
 inaccessible. 
 
 The apparent inactivity of Augustus and Tibe- 
 rius was simply the ultimate and most beneficent 
 phase of the state-devouring policy of Rome, 
 that in which, the destructive forces exhausted, 
 the creative forces began to act. Augustus and 
 Tiberius only prolonged indefinitely by m.eans 
 of expedients that mediocre order and that partial 
 tranquillity re-established after Actium by the 
 general weariness; but exactly for this reason 
 were they so useful to the world. In this peace, 
 in this mediocre order, the policy of expansion 
 of Rome, finally rid of all the destructive forces, 
 matured all the benefits inherent within it. Fi- 
 nally, after a frightful crisis, the world was able 
 to enjoy a liberty and an autonomy such as it 
 had never previously enjoyed and which perhaps 
 
The Roman Empire 217 
 
 it will never again in an equal degree of civilisa- 
 tion and in so great an extension. 
 
 The Empire then covered Spain, France, Bel- 
 gium, a part of Germany and Austria, Switzer- 1 
 land and Italy, the Balkanic coimtries, Greece, «/ 
 Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, a part of Arabia, 
 Egypt, and all northern Africa. I do not believe 
 that the political personnel that made up the 
 central government of this enormous Empire ^/ 
 ever comprised more than 2000 men. The army 
 charged with defending so many territories ^' 
 numbered about 200,000 men — fewer than the 
 present army of Italy alone. The effects of this 
 order of things were soon to be seen \ in all the 
 Mediterranean basin there began a rapid and uni- 
 versal economic expansion, which, on a smaller 
 scale, might remind one of what Europe and 
 America have seen in the nineteenth century. 
 New lands were cultivated, new mines opened, 
 new wares manufactured, exports sent into re- 
 gions formerly closed or unknown; and every 
 new source of wealth, creating new riches, made 
 labour and commerce progress. 
 
 Foremost among all nations of the Empire, 
 at the centre, Italy rapidly consolidated its for- 
 time and its domination. After the mad plun- 
 dering of the times of Cassar, followed methodical 
 
2i8 Social Development of 
 
 exploiting. Italy attracted to itself by the power 
 of political leadership the precious metals and 
 wares of luxury from every part of the Empire; 
 the largest quantity of these things passed through 
 Rome, before being scattered throughout the 
 peninsula in exchange for the agricultural and 
 industrial products of Italy, consumed in the 
 capital. Consequently the middle classes and 
 many cities grew rich, especially the cities of 
 the Campania, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Naples, 
 Pozzuoli, through which passed all the trade be- 
 tween Italy and Egypt. In addition, Italy found 
 an abundant source of income in the exportation 
 of wine and oil. 
 
 In short, having at last emerged from revolu- 
 tion, the peoples of Italy rallied around Rome 
 and the imperial power, united and relatively 
 content. At the same time, the provinces began 
 among themselves, about Italy, a great inter- 
 change of merchandise, men, ideas, customs, 
 across the Mediterranean. Rome and Italy were 
 invaded by a crowd of Orientals, slaves, freedmen, 
 merchants, artisans, Utterati, artists, acrobats, 
 poets, adventurers; and contemporaneously with 
 Rome and Italy, the agricultural provinces of 
 the West, especially those along the Danube. 
 Rome did not conquer the barbarous provinces 
 
The Roman Empire 219 
 
 of Europe for itself alone; it conquered them 
 also for the East, which, in Mesia, Dalmatia, 
 Pannonia, among those barbarians growing civil- 
 ised and eager to live in cities, found customers 
 for their industries in articles of luxury, for their 
 artists, teachers of literature, and propagandists 
 of religion. 
 
 We are therefore able to explain to ourselves 
 why, beginning from the time of Augustus, all 
 the industrial cities of the Orient — Pergamon, 
 Laodicea, Ephesus, lerapolis, Tyre, Sidon, Alex- 
 andria — entered upon an era of new and refulgent 
 prosperity. Finally, we add the singular enrich- 
 ing of two nations, whose names return anew 
 united for the last time, Egypt and Gaul. To 
 all the numerous sources of Gallic wealth there 
 is to be added yet another, the importance of 
 which is easier to understand after what I have 
 said on the development of the Empire. Pliny 
 tells us that all Gaul wove linen sails. The pro- 
 gress of navigation, a consequence of the progress 
 of commerce, much increased the demand for 
 linen sail-cloth, something that explains the 
 spread of flax cultivation in Gaul and the profit 
 derived from it. 
 
 As to Egypt, it not only found in the pacified 
 empire new outlets for its old industries, but also 
 
"220 Social Development of 
 
 succeeded in engaging a large part of the new 
 commerce with the extreme Orient, which was 
 at this time greatly on the increase. From India 
 and China were imported pearls, diamonds, silk 
 fabrics ; for the use of these wares gained largely 
 during this century, as it has done in recent times 
 in Europe and America j perfumes were also im- 
 ported, and rice, which served as a medicament 
 and to prepare dishes of luxury. 
 ^ The unity of the Empire was due far more 
 to this great economic development that began 
 under Augustus than to the political action of 
 the early emperors. Little by little, imperial 
 interests became so numerous and so consider- 
 able that Rome saw the effort necessary to keep 
 up the unity diminish. Everywhere, even in 
 the most distant regions, powerful minorities 
 formed that worked for Rome and against old 
 separating, anti-uniting forces, against old tra- 
 ditions and local patriotism alike. The wealthy 
 classes everywhere became in a special way wholly 
 favourable to Rome. Therefore there is no more 
 serious mistake than regarding the Roman Em- 
 pire as the exclusive work of a government': it 
 was in truth created by two diverse forces, ope- 
 rating one after the other — each in its own time, 
 for both were necessary: a force of destruction 
 
The Roman Empire 221 
 
 — the state-devouring policy of Rome ; a force of 
 reconstruction — ^the economic unification. The 
 annihilation of states, without which there would 
 have been no economic unification, was the work 
 of the government and the armies. It was the 
 politicians of the Senate that destroyed so many 
 states by wars and diplomatic intrigues; but 
 the economic unification was made chiefly by 
 the infinitely little — the peasant, the artisan, the 
 educated man — ^the nameless many, that lived 
 and worked and passed away, leaving hardly 
 trace or record. These imknown that laboured, 
 each seeking his own personal happiness, con- 
 tributed to create the Empire as much as did 
 the great statesmen and generals. For this reason 
 I can never regard without a certain emotion 
 the mutilated inscriptions in the museums, 
 chance salvage from the great shipwreck of the 
 ancient world, that have preserved the name of 
 some land-owner, or merchant, or physician, or 
 freedman. Lo ! what remains of these generations 
 of obscure workers, who were the indispensable 
 collaborators of the great statesmen and diplo- 
 matists of Rome, and without whom the political 
 world of Rome would have been but a gigantic 
 enterprise of military brigandage ! 
 The great historic merit of Augustus and of 
 
222 Social Development of 
 
 Tiberius is that they presided over the passage 
 from the destructive to the reorganising phase 
 with their wise, prudent, apparently inactive 
 policy. The transition, like all transitions, was 
 difficult; the disintegrating forces were not yet 
 exhausted; the upbuilding forces were still 
 very weak ; the world of the time was in unstable 
 equilibrium, violent perturbations certainly yet 
 possible. Without doubt, it is hard to say what 
 would have happened if, instead of being gov- 
 
 J emed by the policy of Augustus, the world had 
 fallen into the hands of an adventurous oligarchy 
 like that which gathered around Alexander the 
 Great ; but we can at least affirm that the sagacity 
 
 / and prudence of Augustus, which twenty cen- 
 turies afterward appear as inactivity, did much 
 to avoid such disturbances, the consequences of 
 which, in a world so exhausted, would have been 
 grave. 
 
 Nor is it correct to believe that this policy was 
 
 easy. Moderation and passivity, even when 
 
 good for the governed, rust and waste away 
 
 , governments, which must always be doing some- 
 
 • thing, even if it be only making mistakes. In 
 fact, while supreme power usually brings return 
 and much return to him who exercises it, espe- 
 cially in monarchies, it cost instead, and imjustly, 
 
The Roman Empire 223 
 
 to Augustus and Tiberius. Augustus had to 
 offer to the monster, as Tiberius called the Em- 
 pire, almost all his family, beginning with the 
 beloved Julia, and had to spend for the state 
 almost all his fortune. We know that although 
 in the last twenty years of his life he received by 
 many bequests a sum amounting to a billion and 
 four hundred million sesterces, he left his heirs 
 only one hundred and fifty million sesterces, 
 all the rest having been spent by him for the 
 Republic: this was the singular civil list of this 
 curious monarch, who, instead of fleecing his 
 subjects, spent for them almost all he had. It 
 is vain to speak of Tiberius: the Empire cost 
 him the only thing that perhaps he held dear, 
 his fame. A philosophic history would be wrong 
 in not recognising the grandeur of these sacrifices, 
 which are the last glory of the Roman nobility. 
 The old political spirit of the Roman nobility 
 gave to Augustus and Tiberius the strength to 
 make these sacrifices, and they probably saved 
 ancient civilisation from a most difficult crisis. 
 It may be observed that Augustus and Tibe- 
 rius worked for the Empire and the future with- 
 out realising it. Far from understanding that 
 the economic progress of their time would unify 
 the Empire better than could their laws and 
 
224 Social Development of 
 
 their legions, they feared it; they believed that 
 it would everywhere diffuse "corruption," even 
 in the armies, and therefore weaken the imperial 
 power of resistance against the barbarians on 
 the Rhine and the Danube. The German peril — 
 the future had luminously to demonstrate it — 
 was much less than Augustus and Tiberius be- 
 lieved. In other words, the first two emperors 
 thought that the unity of the Empire would be 
 maintained by a vigorous, solid army, while the 
 economic progress, which spread "corruption," 
 appeared to them to put it to risk. 
 
 Exactly the opposite happened; the army 
 continued to decay, notwithstanding the des- 
 perate efforts of Tiberius, while the inner force 
 of economic interests held the countries well 
 boimd together. It is impossible to oppose this 
 course of reasoning, in itself most accurate ; but 
 what conclusion is to be drawn from it? In the 
 chaotic conflict of passions and interests that 
 make up the world, the deeds of a man or a party 
 are not useful in proportion to the objective 
 truth of the ideas acted out, or to the success 
 attained. Their usefulness depends upon the 
 direction of the effort, on the ends it proposes, 
 on the results it obtains. There are men and 
 parties of whom one might say, they were right 
 
The Roman Empire 225 
 
 to be wrong, when chimerical ideas and mistakes 
 have sustained their courage to carry out an 
 effective effort; there are others, instead, of 
 whom it might be said that they were wrong to 
 be right, when their clear vision of present and 
 past kept them from accomplishing some pain- 
 ful but necessary duty. 
 
 Certainly the old Roman traditions were des- 
 tined to be overwhelmed by the invasion of 
 Oriental ideas and habits; but what might not 
 have happened if every one had understood 
 this from the very times of Augustus; if then 
 no one had opposed the invasion of Orientalism; 
 if mysticism and the monarchy of divine right 
 had transformed Italy or the Empire within 
 fifty years instead of three centuries? I should 
 not at all hesitate to affirm that certain errors 
 are in certain conjiinctions much wiser than the 
 corresponding verities. There is nothing more 
 useful in life than resistance, though apparently 
 futile, against social forces fated to perish, because 
 these, struggling on to the very end, always suc- 
 ceed in imposing a part of themselves on the 
 victorious power, and the result is always better 
 than a complete and unantagonised victory of 
 the opposing force. To the obstinate resist- 
 ance with which republican principles combated 
 
 IS 
 
226 Social Development of 
 
 Asiatic monarchy in Rome, we must even to-day 
 render thanks for the fact that Europe was not 
 condemned, like Asia, to carry the eternal yoke 
 of semidivine absolutism, even in dynastic r6- 
 gimes. What social force destined to perish 
 would still have power to struggle if it clearly 
 foresaw its inevitable future dissolution; if it 
 did not fortify itself a little with some deluding 
 vision of its own future? 
 
 Augustus and Tiberius were deceived. They 
 wished to reanimate what was doomed; they 
 feared what for the moment was not dangerous. 
 They are the last representatives of the policy 
 initiated by the Scipios and not the initiators of 
 the policy that created the bureaucratic Empire 
 of Diocletian: yet this is exactly their glory. 
 They were right to be wrong; and they rendered 
 to the Empire an immense service, for the very 
 reason that the definite outcome of their efforts 
 was diametrically opposed to the idea that ani- 
 mated them. But we need not dwell on this 
 point. Such were the ideas of the two emperors 
 and the results of their work; the true Empire, 
 known to all, the monarchic, Asiaticised, bureau- 
 cratic Empire, grew out of this little-governed 
 beginning that Augustus and Tiberius allowed 
 to live in the freedom of the largest autonomy. 
 
The Roman Empire 227 
 
 How was it formed? This is the great problem 
 that I shall try to solve in the sequence of my 
 work. Naturally, I cannot now r6sum6 all the 
 ideas I mean to develop: I confine myself here 
 to some of the simplest considerations, which 
 seem to me surest. 
 
 The picture of the Empire, so brilliant from 
 the economic stand-point, is much less so from 
 the intellectual : here we touch its great weakness. 
 Destroying so many governments, especially in 
 the Orient, Rome had at the same time decapi- 
 tated the intellectual dites of the ancient world ; 
 for the courts of the monarchies were the great 
 firesides of mental activity. Rome had therefore, 
 together with states and governments, destroyed 
 scientific and literary institutions, centres of 
 art, traditions of refinement, of taste, of aesthetic 
 elegance. So ever3rwhere, with the Roman 
 domination, the practical spirit won above 
 the philosophical and scientific, commerce over 
 arts and letters, the middle classes over historic 
 aristocracies. Already weakened by the over- 
 throw of the most powerful Asiatic monarchies, 
 these elites received the final blow on the disap- 
 pearance of their last protection, the dynasty 
 of the Ptolemies in Egypt. 
 
 When Augustus began to govern the Empire, 
 
2 28 Social Development of 
 
 the classes that represent tradition, culture, 
 the elevated and disinterested activities of the 
 spirit, were everywhere extensive in number, 
 in wealth, in energy. It was not long before 
 these ultimate remainders vanished under the 
 alluvial overflow of the middle classes, swollen 
 by the big economic gains of the first century. 
 In this respect, the first and second centuries 
 of the Christian era resemble our own time. In 
 the whole Empire, alike in Rome, in Gaul, in 
 Asia, there were old aristocratic families, rich 
 and illustrious, but they were not the class of 
 greatest power. Under them stood a middle 
 class of merchants, land-owners, orators, jurists, 
 professors, and other intellectual men, and this 
 was so numerous, comfortable, and so potent 
 as to cause all the great social forces, from gov- 
 ernment to industry, to abandon the old aris- 
 tocracy and court it like a new mistress. Art, 
 industry, literature, were vulgarised in those 
 two centuries, as to-day in Europe and America, 
 because they had to work mainly for this middle 
 class which was much more numerous, and yet 
 cruder than the ancient elites. It was the first 
 era of the cheap, of vulgarisations, I was about 
 to say of the made in Germany, that enters into 
 history. There was invented the art of silver- 
 
The Roman Empire 229 
 
 plating, to give the bourgeoisie at moderate prices 
 the sweet illusion of possessing objects of silver; 
 great thinkers disappeared; instead were multi- 
 plied manuals, treatises, encyclopaedias, professors 
 that summarised and vulgarised. Philosophy 
 gradually gave out, like all the higher forms 
 of literature, and there began the reign of the 
 declaimers and the sophists ; that is, the lecture- 
 givers, the lawyers, the journalists. In painting 
 and sculpture, original schools were no more to 
 be found, nor great names, but the number of 
 statues and bas-reliefs increased infinitely. The 
 paintings of Pompeii and many statues and mar- 
 bles that are now admired in European museums 
 are examples of this industrialised art, inexpen- 
 sive, creating nothing original, but furnishing to 
 families in comfortable circumstances passable 
 copies of works of art — once a privilege only of 
 kings. 
 
 The imperial bureaucracy that was formed 
 mainly in the second century was another effect 
 of this enlargement of the middle classes. In the 
 second century there came into vogue many 
 humanitarian ideas, which have a certain resem- 
 blance to modern ones. There increased solici- 
 tude for the general well-being, for order, for 
 justice, and this augmented the number of func- 
 
230 Social Development of 
 
 tionaries charged with insuring universal felicity 
 by administrative means. The movement was 
 supported by intellectual men of the middle 
 classes, especially by jurists, who sought to put 
 their studies to profit, getting from the govern- 
 ment employments in which they might make 
 use, well or ill, of their somewhat artificial apti- 
 tudes. If the aristocratic idea, personified by 
 Augustus and Tiberius, delayed, it could not 
 stop, the invasion of these bureaucratic locusts j 
 the government showed itself constantly weaker 
 with the intellectual classes. Little by little the 
 whole Empire was bureaucratised ; founded by 
 an aristocracy exclusively Roman in statesmen 
 and soldiers, it was finally governed by a cosmo- 
 politan bureaucracy of men of brains: orators, 
 litterati, lawyers. Therefore, to. my thinking, 
 they are wrong who believe that the imperial 
 bureaucracy created the unity of the Empire; 
 whereas, the formation of the imperial bureau- 
 cracy was one of the consequences of that natural 
 unification, the chief reason for which should 
 be sought in the great economic movement. 
 The economic unification was first and was entire; 
 then came the political unity, made by the im- 
 perial bureaucracy, which was less complete than 
 the unifying of material interests. 
 
The Roman Empire 231 
 
 After the material unity, after the political, 
 there should have been formed the moral and 
 intellectual ; but at this point, the forces of Rome 
 gave way. Rome had gathered under its sceptre 
 too many races, too many kinds of culture, 
 religions too diverse ; its spirit was too exclusively 
 political, administrative, and judicial; it could 
 not therefore conciliate the ideas, assimilate the 
 customs, weld the sentiments, unify the religions, 
 by its laws and decrees. To this end was neces- 
 sary the power of ideas, of doctrines, of beliefs 
 that officials of administration could neither cre- 
 ate nor propagate. The work was to be ac- 
 complished outside of, and in part against, the 
 government. It is the work of Christianity. 
 
 Many have asked me how I shall consider 
 Christianity in the sequence of my work. In 
 brief, I may say that I shall follow a different 
 method from that which its historians have taken 
 up to this time: they have studied especially 
 how there was formed that part of Christianity 
 which yet lives and is the soul of it, namely, the 
 religious doctrine. On this account, they gener- 
 ally separate its history from the history of the 
 Empire, making of it the principal argument, 
 considering the history of Roman society as sub- 
 ordinate to it and therefore only an appendix. I 
 
232 Social Development of 
 
 propose to reverse the study, taking Christian- 
 ity as a chapter, important but separate, in the 
 history of the Empire. If for three centuries 
 Christianity has been gradually returning to its 
 origin, that is, becoming purely a religion and 
 a moral teaching, for some centuries in the ancient 
 world it was a thing much more complicated ; a 
 government and an administration that willed 
 not only to regulate the relations between man 
 and God, but to govern the intellectual, social, 
 moral, political, and economic life of the people. 
 The historian ought to explain how this new 
 Empire — for it was indeed a new Empire — 
 was formed in Rome and upon its ruins: this 
 is a problem much more intricate than at first 
 appears. 
 
 It has been said and often repeated that the 
 Church was in the Middle Ages in Europe the 
 continuation of the Roman Empire, that the Pope 
 is yet the real successor of the Emperor in Rome. 
 In fact he carries one of the Emperor's titles, 
 Pontifex maximus. The observation is just, but 
 it should not make us forget that the Christian 
 Empire, so to call it, and the Roman Empire 
 were between themselves as radically opposed 
 as two forces that created the one and the other: 
 politic^ and intellectuality. The diplomatists, 
 
The Roman Empire 233 
 
 the generals, the legislators of Rome created by 
 political means, by wars, treaties, laws, a grand 
 economic and political unity, which they consoli- 
 dated, quite giving up the formation of a large 
 intellectual and moral unity. The intellectual 
 men, who formed the most powerful nucleus of 
 the Church after the fourth century, took up 
 again the Roman idea of unity and of empire; 
 but they transferred it from matter to mind, 
 from the concrete world of economic and political 
 interests, to the world of ideas and beliefs. They 
 tried to re-do, by pen and word, the work of the 
 Scipios, of Lucullus, and of Caesar, to conquer 
 the world, not indeed invading it with armies, 
 but spreading a new faith, creating a new morality, 
 a new metaphysics which must gather up within 
 themselves the intellectual activities of Gr^co- 
 Latin culture, from history to science, from law 
 to philosophy. 
 
 The Church of the Middle Ages was therefore 
 the most splendid edifice that the intellectual 
 classes have so far created. The power of this 
 empire of men of letters increased, as little by 
 little the other empire, that of the generals and 
 diplomats, declined. Christianity saw with indif- 
 ference the Roman Empire decay; indeed, when 
 it could, it helped on the disintegration and was 
 
234 Social Development of 
 
 one of the causes of that political and economic 
 pulverising which everyivhere succeeded the 
 great Roman unity. Political and economic 
 unity on the one hand, moral and intellectual 
 on the other, seem in the history of European 
 civilisation things opposite and irreconcilable} 
 when one is formed, the other is imdone. As 
 the Roman Empire had found in intellectual 
 and moral disunion a means of preserving more 
 easily the economic and political unity, the Church 
 broke to pieces the political and economic unity 
 of the ancient world to make, and for a long time 
 preserve, its own moral and intellectual oneness. 
 I shall make an effort, above all, to explain 
 the origin, the development, and the consequences 
 of this contradiction, because I believe that ex- 
 plaining this clears one of the weightiest and 
 most important points in all the history of our 
 civilisation; in truth, this contradiction seems 
 to be the immortal soul of it. For instance: in 
 time, Augustus is twenty centuries away from 
 us, but mentally and morally he is, instead, 
 much nearer, because for the last four centuries 
 Europe has been returning to Rome — that is, 
 striving to remake a great political and economic 
 unity at the expense of the intellectual and moral. 
 In this fact particularly, lies the immense historic 
 
The Roman Empire 235 
 
 importance of what is called the classic renais- 
 sance. It indicates the beginning of an historic 
 reversion that corresponds in the opposite direc- 
 tion to what occurred in the third and fourth 
 centuries of the Christian era. The classic renais- 
 sance freed anew the scientific spirit of the ancients 
 from mediseval metaphysics and therefore created 
 the sciences; rediscovered some basic political 
 and juridical ideas of the ancient world, among 
 them that of the indivisibility of the State, which 
 destroyed the foundations of feudalism and of all 
 the political orders of the Middle Ages ; and gave 
 a great impetus to the struggle against the politi- 
 cal domination of the Church and toward the 
 formation of the great states. France and Eng- 
 land have been in the lead, and for two centuries 
 Europe has been wearying itself imitating them. ^^,„^^ 
 
 After the movement of political unification 
 followed the economic. Look about you: what 
 do you see? A world that looks more like the 
 Roman Empire than it does the Middle Ages; / 
 it is a world of great states whose dominating 
 classes have almost all the essential ideas of 
 Graeco-Latin civilisation; each, seeking to better 
 its own conditions, is forced to establish between 
 itself and the others the strictest economic re- 
 lations and to bind into the system of common 
 
236 Social Development of 
 
 interests also barbarous coimtries and those of 
 differing civilisation. But how? By scrupulously 
 respecting all the intellectual and moral diversi- 
 ties of men. What matters it if a people be 
 Roman Catholic or Protestant, Mohammedan 
 or Buddhist, monarchic or republican, provided 
 it buys, sells, takes part in the economic unity 
 of the modem world? This is the policy of con- 
 temporary states and was the policy of the Roman 
 Empire. It has often been observed that in the 
 modem world, so well administered, there is an 
 intellectual and moral diversity greater than 
 that during the fearful anarchy of the Middle 
 Ages, when all the lettered classes had a single 
 language, the Latin, and the lower classes held, 
 on certain fimdamental questions, the same 
 ideas — ^those taught by the Church. A correct 
 observation, this, but one from which there is 
 no need to draw too many conclusions; since in 
 our history the material tinity and the ideal are 
 naturally exclusive. 
 
 We are returning, in a vaster world, to the 
 condition of the Roman Empire at its beginning ; 
 to an immense economic unity, which, notwith- 
 standing the aberrations of protectionism, is 
 grander and firmer than all its predecessors; to 
 a political imity not so great, yet considerable, 
 
The Roman Empire 237 
 
 because even if peace be not eternal, it is at least 
 the normal condition of the European states ; to an 
 indifference for every effort put forth to establish 
 moral and ideal uniformity among the nations, 
 great and small, that share in this political and 
 economic unity. This is why we understand 
 Augustus and his times much more readily than 
 we do the times of Charlemagne, even though 
 from the latter we possess a greater number of 
 documents; this is why we can write a history 
 of Augustus and rectify so many mistakes made 
 about him by preceding generations. It has 
 often happened to me to find, h propos of the 
 volumes written on Augustus, that my contra- 
 diction of tradition creates a kind of instinctive 
 diffidence. Many say: "Yes, this book is inter- 
 esting; but is it possible that for twenty centuries 
 everybody has been mistaken ? — ^that it was neces- 
 sary to wait till 1908 to understand what occurred 
 in the year 8?" But those twenty centuries re- 
 duce themselves, as far as regards the possibility 
 of understanding Augustus, to little more than a 
 hundred years. Since Augustus was the last 
 representative of a world that was disappearing, 
 his figure soon became obscure and enigmatic. 
 Tacitus and Suetonius saw him already enveloped 
 in the mist of that new spirit which for so many 
 
238 Social Development 
 
 centuries was to conceal from human eyes the 
 wonderful spectacle of the pagan world. Then 
 the mist became a fog and grew denser, until 
 Augustus disappeared, or was but a formless 
 shadow. Centuries passed by; the fog began to 
 withdraw before the returning sun of the ancient 
 culture; his figure reappeared. Fifty years ago, 
 the obscurity cleared quite away; the figure 
 stands in plain view with outlines well defined. 
 I believe that the history I have written is more 
 like the truth than those preceding it, but I do 
 not consider myself on that account a wonder- 
 worker. I know I have been able to correct 
 many preceding errors, because I was the first 
 to look attentively when the moment to see and 
 understand arrived. 
 
Roman History in Modern 
 Education. 
 
 239 
 
WHEN I announced my intention to write 
 a new history of Rome, many people 
 manifested a sense of astonishment similar to 
 what they would have felt had I said that I 
 meant to retire to a monastery. Was it to be be- 
 lieved that the hurrying modem age, which bends 
 all its energies toward the future, would find 
 time to look back, even for a moment, at that 
 past so far away? That my attempt was rash 
 was the common opinion not only of friends and 
 critics, but also of publishers, who everywhere 
 at first showed themselves skeptical and hesi- 
 tating. They all said that the public was quite 
 out of touch with Roman affairs. On the con- 
 trary, facts have demonstrated that also in this 
 age, in aspect so eager for things modem, people 
 
 of culture are willing to give attention to the 
 events and personages of ancient Rome. 
 
 The thing appears strange and bizarre, as is 
 natural, to those who had not considered it pos- 
 sible; consequently, few have seen how simple 
 
 i6 241 
 
242 Roman History 
 
 and clear is its explanation. To those who showed 
 surprise that the history of Rome could become 
 fashionable in Paris salons, I have always replied: 
 My history has had its fortune because it was 
 the history of Rome. Written with the same 
 method and in the same style, a history of Venice, 
 or Florence, or England, would not have had 
 the same lot. One must not forget that the 
 _story^f Rome occupies in the intellectual world 
 a privileged place. Not only is it studied in all 
 the schools of the civilised world; not only do 
 nearly all states spend money to bring to light 
 all the documentary evidence that the earth 
 still conceals; but while all other histories are 
 studied fitfully, that of Rome is, so to speak, 
 remade every fifty years, and whoever arrives at 
 the right time to do the making can gain a reputa- 
 tion broader than that given to most historians. 
 There is, so to speak, in the history of Rome 
 an eternal youth, and for the mind in what is 
 commonly called European-American civilisation, 
 it holds a peculiar attraction. From what deep 
 sources springs this perennial youth? In what 
 consists this particular force of attraction and 
 renewal? It seems to me that the chief reason 
 for the eternal fascination of the history of Rome 
 is this, that it includes, as in a miniature drawn 
 
In Modern Education 243 
 
 with simple lines, well defined, all the essential 
 phenomena of social life; so tEat~every age is 
 "able there to find its own image, its gravest 
 problems, its intensest passions, its most press- 
 ing interests, its keenest struggles; therefore 
 Roman history is forever modem, because every 
 new age has only to choose that part which most 
 resembles it, to find its own self. 
 
 In the intellectual history of the nineteenth 
 century this leading phenomenon of our culture 
 is clearly evident. If any one asked me why, 
 during the past century, Roman history has 
 proved so interesting, I should not hesitate to 
 reply, "Because Europeans and Americans find 
 there more than elsewhere what has been the 
 greatest political upheaval of the hundred years 
 that followed the French Revolution — the strug- 
 gle between monarchy and republic." From 
 the fervid admiration for the Roman Republic 
 which animated the men of the French Revolution 
 to the iinmeasured Caesarian apologies of Duruy 
 and of Mommsen, from the ardent cult of Brutus 
 to the detailed studies on the Roman administra- 
 tion of the first two centuries, all historians have 
 studied and regarded Roman history mainly 
 from the point of view of the struggle between 
 the two principles that yet to-day rend in 
 
244 Roman History 
 
 incurable discord the mind of old Europe and 
 from which you have emerged f orttinate ! You are 
 free, in a new world ; you have ended the combat 
 between the Latin principle of the impersonal 
 state and the Oriental principle of the dynastic 
 state' between the state conceived as the thing 
 of all, belonging to every one and therefore of 
 no one, and the state personified in a family of 
 an origin higher and nobler than the common 
 in which all authority derives from some hero- 
 founder by a mysterious virtue unaccountable 
 to reason and human philosophy; you have 
 done with the conflict between the human state, 
 simple, without pomp, without dramatic sym- 
 bols — the republic as we men of the twentieth 
 century understand it, and as you Americans 
 conceive and practise it — and the monarchy 
 of divine right, vainglorious, full of ceremordes 
 and etiquette, despotic in internal constitution, 
 which still exists in Europe imder more or less 
 spurious forms. Now it is easy to explain how, 
 in an age in which the contest between these 
 two conceptions and these two forms of the State 
 was so warm, the history of Rome should so stir 
 the mind. 
 
 In no other history do these two political forms 
 meet each other in a more irreconcilable opposi- 
 
In Modern Education 245 
 
 tion of characters in extreme. The Republic, as 
 Rome had founded it, was so impersonal that, 
 in contrast with modem more democratic re- 
 publics, it had not even a fixed bureaucracy, 
 and all the public functions were exercised by 
 elective magistrates — even the executive — from 
 public works to the police-system. In the ancient 
 monarchy which the Orient had created, the 
 dynastic principle was so strong that the State 
 was considered by inherent right the personal 
 property of the sovereign, who might expand it, 
 contract it, divide it among his sons and relatives, 
 bequeathing his kingdom and his subjects as a 
 land-owner disposes of his estate and his cattle. 
 Furthermore, although to-day the sovereigns of 
 Europe are pleased to treat quite familiarly 
 with the good Lord, the rulers in the Orient were 
 held to be gods in their own right. 
 
 Whence it is easy to understand how terrible 
 must have been the struggle between the two 
 principles so antagonistic, from the time when 
 in the Empire, immeasurable and complicated, 
 the institutions of the Republic proved inadequate 
 to govern so many diverse peoples and territories 
 so vast. The Romans kept on, as at first, rebel- 
 ling at the idea of placing a man-god at the head 
 of the State, themselves to become, when finally 
 
246 Roman History 
 
 masters of the world, the slaves of a dynasty. 
 The conflict between the two principles lasted 
 a century, from Caesar to Nero, filled the story 
 of Rome with hideous tragedies, but ended with 
 the truce of a glorious compromise; for Rome 
 succeeded in putting into the monarchic consti- 
 tution of empire some essentially republican 
 ideas, among others, the idea of the indivisibility 
 of the State. Not only_AAigustus and his family, 
 but also the_^Flavians_5lid the Antonines, never 
 thought that the Empire belonged to them, that 
 they might dispose of it like private property; 
 on the contrary, they regarded it as an eternal 
 and indivisible holding of the Roman people 
 which they, as representatives of the populuSy 
 were charged to administer. 
 
 It is therefore easy, as I have said, to explain 
 how, as never before, the history of Rome was 
 looked upon as a great war between the monarchy 
 and the republic. Indeed, the problem of the 
 republic and the monarchy, always present to 
 the minds of writers of the nineteenth century, 
 has been perhaps the chief reason for the gravest 
 mistakes committed by Roman historiography 
 during this period — inistakes I have sought to 
 correct. For example, the republicans have 
 pinned their faith to all the absurd tales told 
 
In Modern Education 247 
 
 by Suetonius and Tacitus about the family of 
 the Caesars, through preconceived hate for the 
 monarchy ; and the monarchists have exaggerated 
 out of measure the felicity of the first two cen- 
 turies of the Empire, to prove that the provinces 
 lived happy under the monarchic administration 
 as never before or after. Mommsen has fashioned 
 an impossible Cassar, almost making of that great 
 demagogue a literary anticipation of Bismarck. 
 Little by little, however, as the contest between 
 republic and monarchy gradually spent itself in 
 Europe, in the last twenty-five years of the nine- 
 teenth century, the interest for histories of Rome 
 conceived and written in this spirit, declined. 
 The real reason why Mommsen and Duruy are 
 to-day so little read, why at the beginning of 
 the twentieth century Roman history no longer 
 stirs enthusiasm through their books is, above 
 all, this : that readers no longer find in those pages 
 what corresponds directly to living reality. There- 
 fore it was to be believed that Roman history 
 had grown old and out of date ; whereas, merely 
 one of its perishing and deciduous forms had 
 grown old, not the soul of it, which is eternally 
 living and yoimg. So true is this, that a writer 
 had only to consider the old story from new 
 points of view, for Csesar and Antony, Lucullus 
 
248 Roman History 
 
 and Pompey, Augustus and the laws of the year 
 18 B.C., to become subjects of fashionable con- 
 versation in Parisian drawing-rooms, in the most 
 refined intellectual centre of the world. 
 
 It has never been difficult for me to realise 
 that contemporary Europe and America, the 
 Europe and America of railroads, industries, 
 monstrous swift-growing cities, might find pre- 
 sent in ancient Rome a part of their own very 
 souls, restless, turbulent, greedy. In the Rome 
 of the days of Caesar, huge, agitated, seething 
 with freedmen, slaves, artisans come from every- 
 where, crowded with enormous tenement-houses, 
 run through from morning till night by a mad 
 throng, eager for amusements and distractions j 
 in that Rome where there jostled together an un- 
 numbered population, uprooted from land, from 
 family, from native country, and where from 
 the press of so many men there fermented all 
 the propelling energies of history and all the 
 forces that destroy morality and life — ^vice and 
 intellectuality, the imperialistic policy, deadly 
 epidemics ; in that changeable Rome, here splen- 
 did, there squalid; now magnanimous, and now 
 brutal; full of grandeurs, replete with horrors; 
 in that great city all the huge modem metro- 
 polises are easily refound, Paris and New York, 
 
In Modern Education 249 
 
 Buenos Ayres and London, Melbourne and Berlin. 
 Rome created the word that denotes this mar- 
 vellous and monstrous phenomenon of history, the 
 enormous city, the deceitful source of life and 
 death — urhs — the city. Whence it is not strange 
 that the coimtless urhes which the grand eco- 
 nomic progress of the nineteenth century has 
 caused to rise in every part of Europe and Amer- 
 ica look to Rome as their eldest sister and their 
 dean. 
 
 Furthermore, into the history of Rome, the 
 historic aristocracy of Europe may look as into 
 the mirror of their own destiny, as everywhere 
 they try to retain wealth and power, playing in 
 the stock-exchange, marrying the daughters of 
 millionaire brewers, giving themselves to com- 
 merce! a nobility that resorts, in the effort to 
 preserve its prestige over the middle classes, 
 to the expedients of the most reckless demagogy. 
 Sulla, Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Antony, Caesar, 
 exemplify in stupendous types the aristocracy 
 that seeks to conserve riches and power by au- 
 daciously employing the forces that menace its 
 own destruction. 
 
 Several critics of my work, particularly the 
 French, have observed that the policy of expan- 
 sion made by Rome in the times of Caesar, as I 
 
V 
 
 250 Roman History 
 
 have described it, resembles closely the craze for 
 imperialism that about ten years ago agitated 
 England. It is true, for imperialism in the time 
 of Caesar was what has existed for the last half 
 century in England — a means of which one part 
 of the historic aristocracy availed itself to keep 
 power and renew decaying prestige, satisfying 
 material interests and flattering with intoxications 
 of vanity the pride of the masses. So, too, the 
 contesting parties in France — ^the socialist, which 
 represents the labouring classes; the radical, 
 which represents the middle classes ; the progres- 
 sive and the monarchic, which represent the 
 wealthy burghers and the aristocracy — ^may dis- 
 cover some of their passions, their doings, their 
 invectives, in the political warfare that troubled 
 the age of Csesar ; in those scandals, those judicial 
 trials, in that furor of pamphlets and discourses. 
 This is so true, that in consequence my book met 
 a singular fate in France ; that of being adopted 
 by each party as an argument in its own favour. 
 Drumont made use of it to demonstrate to France 
 what befalls a country when it allows its national 
 spirit to be corrupted by foreign influx, seeking 
 to persuade his fellow-citizens that the Jews in 
 France do the same work of intellectual and 
 moral dissolution that the Orientals brought 
 
In Modern Education 251 
 
 about in Rome. Radical writers, like Andr6 
 Maurel, have sought arguments in my work to 
 combat the colonial and imperialistic policy. 
 The imperialists also, like Pinon, have looked for 
 arguments to support their stand-point. Was I 
 not merely demonstrating that the policy of 
 expansion is a kind of universal and constant 
 law, which periodically actualises itself through 
 the working of the same forces, in the same 
 ways? 
 
 It is not to be thought that the age of Csesar, 
 so disturbed, so stormy, is our only mirror in 
 the story of Rome. When I write the account 
 of the imperial society of the first and second 
 centuries, our own time will be able to recognise 
 even more of itself, to see what must be the fu- 
 ture of Europe and America, if for a century or 
 two they have no profound political and social 
 upheavals. In that great pax Romana lasting 
 two centuries, we may study with special facility 
 a phenomenon to be found in all rich civili- 
 sations cultured and relatively at peace — ^the 
 phenomenon to me the most important in con- 
 temporary European life, the feminising of all 
 social life; that is, the victory of the feminine 
 over the masculine spirit. Do not fancy that 
 the feminists, the problems and the disputes 
 
2|2 Roman History 
 
 they excite in modem society, are something 
 quite new and peculiar to us; these are only 
 special forms of a phenomenon more general, 
 the growing influence that woman exercises 
 on society, as civilisation, culture, and wealth 
 steadily increase. Here, too, the history of 
 Rome is luminously clear. In it we see evolving 
 that vast contest between the feminine spirit 
 and the masculine, which is one of the essential 
 phenomena in all human history. We see the 
 masculine spirit — the spirit of domination, of 
 force, of mastery, of daring — ruling complete, 
 when the small community had to fight its first 
 hard battles against nature and men. The father 
 commanded then as monarch in his family; 
 the woman was without right, liberty, personality ; 
 had but to obey, to bear children and rear them. 
 But success, power, wealth, greater security, 
 imperceptibly loosened the narrow bondage of 
 the first struggles; then the feminine spirit — 
 the spirit of freedom, of pleasure, of art, of revolt 
 against tradition — gradually acquired strength, 
 and began bit by bit to undermine at its bases 
 the stem masculine rule. 
 
 The hard conflict of two centuries is sown 
 with tragedies and catastrophes. Supported 
 by tradition, exasperated by the ever bolder 
 
In Modern Education 253 
 
 revolts of woman, the masculine spirit every 
 now and then went mad ; and brutally tore away 
 her costly jewels and tried to deny her soft rai- 
 ment and rare perfumes ; and when she had already 
 grown accustomed to appearing in the world 
 and shining there, he willed to drive her back 
 into the house, and put beside her there on guard 
 the fieriest threats of law. Sometimes, despairing, 
 he filled Rome with his laments; protested that 
 the liberty of the woman cost the man too dear ; 
 cried out that the bills of the dressmaker and 
 the jeweller would send Rome, the Empire, the 
 world, to ruin. In vain, with wealth, in a civili- 
 sation full of Oriental influences, woman grew 
 strong, rose, and invaded all society, until in the 
 vast Empire of the first and second centuries, 
 at the climax of her power, with beauty, love, 
 luxury, culture, prodigality, and mysticism she 
 dominated and dissolved a society which in 
 the refinements of wealth and intellectuality 
 had lost the sharp virtues of the pioneer. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dilate further on this point ; 
 it will be better rather to dwell a moment on the 
 causes and the effects of this singular pheno- 
 menon. The history of Rome has been and can 
 be so rich, so manifold, so universal, because in 
 its long record ancient Rome gathered up into 
 
254 Roman History 
 
 itself, welded, fused, the most diverse elements 
 of social life, from all peoples and all regions 
 with which it came into contact. It knew con- 
 tinued war and interrupted peace for centuries. 
 It held united under its vast sway, states decrepit 
 with the oldest of civilisations, and peoples 
 hardly out of primitive barbarism. It exploited 
 with avidity the intelligence, the laboriousness, 
 the science of the former; the physical force, 
 the war-valour and the daring of the latter; it 
 absorbed the vices, the habits, the ideas of the 
 Hellenised Orient, and transfused them in the 
 untamed Occident. Taking men, ideas, money, 
 everjrwhere and from every people, it created 
 first an empire, then a literature, an architecture, 
 an administration, and a new religion, that were 
 the most tremendous synthesis of the ancient 
 world. So the Roman world turned out vaster 
 and more complex than the Greek, although 
 never assuming proportions exceeding the power 
 of the human mind ; and as it grew, it kept that 
 precious quality, wanting in the Greek, unity; 
 hence, the lucid clearness of Roman history. 
 There is everything in it, and everything radiates 
 from one centre, so that comprehension is easy. 
 Without doubt it would be rash to declare 
 that the history of Rome alone may serve as the 
 
In Modern Education 255 
 
 outline of universal history. It is quite likely 
 that there may be found another history that 
 possesses the same two qualities for which that 
 of Rome is so notable — ^universality and unity — 
 but one thing we may affirm: up to this time 
 the history of Rome alone has fulfilled this office 
 of imiversal compendium, which explains how it 
 has always been studied by the learned and let- 
 tered of every part of the civilised European- 
 American world, and how in modem intellectual 
 life it is the history universal and cosmopolitan 
 par excellence. This condition of things , has a 
 much greater practical importance than is sup- 
 posed. Indeed it would be a serious mistake 
 to believe that cosmopolitan catholicity is an 
 ideal dower purely of Roman history, for which 
 all the sons of Rome may congratulate themselves 
 as of a thing doing honour only to their stirp. 
 This universality forms part, I should say, of 
 the material patrimony of all the Latin stock; 
 we may number it in the historic inventory of 
 all the good things the sons of Rome possess and 
 of all their reasonable hopes for the future. 
 
 This affirmation may at first appear to you 
 paradoxical, strange, and obscure, but I think 
 a short exposition will suffice to clear it. The 
 imiversality of the history of Rome, the ease of 
 
256 Roman History 
 
 finding in it models in miniature of all our life, 
 will have this effect, that classical studies remain 
 the educational foimdation of the intelligent 
 classes in all European-American civilisation. 
 These studies may be reformed; they may be, 
 as they ought, restricted to a smaller number 
 of persons; but if it is not desired — ^as of course 
 it cannot be — ^that in the future all men be purely 
 technical capacities and merely living machines 
 to create material riches ; if, on the contrary, it 
 is desired that in every nation the chosen few 
 that govern have a philosophical consciousness 
 of xmiversal life, no means is better suited to instil 
 this philosophic consciousness than the study 
 of ancient Rome, its history, its civilisation, 
 its laws, its politics, its art, and its religions, 
 exactly because Rome is the completest and 
 most lucid synthesis of universal life. 
 
 Classical studies are one of the most powerful 
 means of intellectual and moral influence on 
 the Anglo-Saxon and German civilisations that 
 the Latins possess, representing under modem 
 conditions, for the Latin nations, a kind of intel- 
 lectual entail inherited from their ancestors. 
 The young Germans and Englishmen who study 
 Greek and Latin, who translate Cicero or con- 
 strue Horace, assimilate the Latin spirit, are 
 
In Modern Education 257 
 
 brought ideally and. morally nearer to us, are 
 prepared without knowing it to receive our intel- 
 lectual and social influence in other fields, are 
 made in greater or less degree to resemble us. 
 Indeed, it can be said, that, material interests 
 apart, Rome is still in the mental field the strong- 
 est bond that holds together the most diverse 
 peoples of Europe ; that it unites the French, the 
 English, the Germans, in an ideal identity which 
 overcomes in part the diversity in speech, in 
 traditions, in geographical situation, and in history. 
 If common classical studies did not make kindred 
 spirits of the upper classes in England, France, 
 and Germany, the Rhine and the Channel would 
 divide three nations mentally so different as to 
 be impenetrable each to another. 
 
 Therefore the cosmopolitan xmiversality of 
 Roman history is a kind of common good which 
 the Latin races ought to defend with all their 
 might, having care that no other history usurp 
 its place in contemporary culture ; that it remain 
 the typical outline, the ideal model of imiversal 
 history in the education of coming generations. 
 The Latin civilised world has need that every 
 now and then an historian arise to reanimate 
 the history of Rome, in order to maintain its 
 continued supremacy in the education of the 
 
 17 
 
258 Roman History 
 
 intelligent ; to prevent other histories from usurp- 
 ing this pre-eminence. 
 
 It is useless to cherish illusions as to the task : 
 its accomplishment has become much more 
 arduous than it was fifty years ago; perhaps 
 because the masses have acquired greater power 
 in every part of the European-American world, 
 and democracy advances more or less rapidly, 
 invading everything — the democracy of the 
 technical man, the merchant, the workman, 
 the well-to-do burgher, all of whom easily hold 
 themselves aloof from a culture in itself ar- 
 istocratic. The accomplishment will become 
 always more and more arduous; for Roman 
 studies, feeling the new generations becoming 
 estranged from them, have for the last twenty- 
 five years tended to take refuge in the tranquil 
 cloisters of learning, of archasology, in the discreet 
 concourse of a few wise men, who voluntarily 
 flee the noises of the world, Fatal thought! 
 Ancient Rome ought to live daily in the mind 
 of the new social classes that lead onward ; ought 
 to irradiate its immortal light on the new worlds 
 that arise from the deeps of the modem age, 
 on pain of undergoing a new destruction more 
 calamitous than that caused by the hordes of 
 Alaric. The day when the history of Rome and 
 
In Modern Education 259 
 
 its monuments may be but material for erudition 
 to put into the museums by the side of the bricks 
 of the palace of IQiorsabad, the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions, and the statues of the kings of Assyria, 
 Latin civilisation will be overwhelmed by a 
 fatal catastrophe. 
 
 To hinder the extinction of the great light of 
 Rome in the world, to prolong indefinitely this 
 ideal survival, which is the continuation of its 
 material Empire, destroyed centuries ago, there 
 is but one way — to renew historic studies of 
 Rome, and to maintain intact their universal 
 value which forms part of common culture. 
 This is what I have tried to do, seeking to lead 
 back to Roman history the many minds estranged 
 from it, distracted by so many cares and anxieties 
 and present questionings, and to fulfil a solemn 
 duty to my fatherland and the grand traditions 
 of Latin culture. If other histories can grow 
 old, it is indeed the more needful, exactly because 
 it serves to educate new generations, to reani- 
 mate Roman history, incorporating in it the 
 new facts constantly discovered by archaeolog- 
 ical effort, infusing it with a larger and stronger 
 philosophical spirit, carrying into it the matured 
 experience of the world, which learns not only 
 by studying but also by living. 
 
26o Roman History 
 
 I do not hesitate to say that every half-century 
 there opens among civilised peoples a contest 
 to find the new conception of Roman history, 
 which, suited to the changed needs, may revivify 
 classical studies; a competition followed by no 
 despicable prize, the intellectual influence that 
 a people may exercise on other peoples by means 
 of these studies. To win in this contest we must 
 never forget, as too many of us have done in the 
 past thirty years, that a man can rule and re- 
 fashion the world from the depths of a library, 
 but only on condition that he does not immure 
 himself there* that, while the physical sciences 
 propose to imderstand matter in order to trans- 
 form it, historico-philosophical discipline has 
 for its end action upon the mind and the willj 
 that philosophical ideas and historic teachings 
 are but seeds shut up to themselves unless they 
 enter the soil of the universal intellectual life. 
 
 No: the time-stained marbles of Rome must 
 not end beside cuneiform-inscribed bricks or 
 Egyptian mummies, in the vast dead sections 
 of archaeological halls; they must serve to pave 
 for our feet the way that leads to the future. 
 Therefore nothing could have been pleasanter 
 or more grateful to me, after receiving the invi- 
 tation tendered me by the College de France^ 
 
In Modern Education 261 
 
 and that from South America, than to accept 
 the invitation of the First Citizen of the United 
 States to visit this world which is being formed. 
 In Paris, that wonderful metropolis of the 
 Latin world, I had the joy, the highest reward for 
 my long, hard labour, to show to the incredulous 
 how much alive the supposedly dead history of 
 Rome still is, when on those unforgettable days 
 so cosmopolite a public gathered from every 
 part of the city in the small plain hall of the old 
 and august edifice. Coming into your midst, 
 I feel that the history of Rome lives not only 
 in the interest with which you have followed these 
 lectures, but also, even if in part without clear 
 cognisance, in things here, in the life you lead, 
 in what you accomplish. The heritage of Rome 
 is, for the peoples of America still more than for 
 those of Europe, an heredity not purely artistic 
 and literary, but political and social, which 
 exercises the most beneficent influence on your 
 history. In a certain sense it might be said 
 that America is to-day politically, more than 
 Europe, the true heir of Rome; that the new 
 world is nearer — by apparent paradox — ^to an- 
 cient Rome than is Europe. Among the most 
 important facts, however little noticed, in the 
 history of the nineteenth century, I should 
 
262 Roman History 
 
 number this: that the Republic, the human state 
 considered as the common property of all — 
 the great political creation of ancient Rome — 
 is reborn here in America, after having died 
 out in Europe. The Latin seed, lying buried 
 for so many centuries beneath the ruins of the 
 ancient world, like the grains of wheat buried 
 in Egyptian tombs, transported from the other 
 side of the ocean, has sprung up in the land 
 that Columbus discovered. If there had been 
 no Rome; if Rome had wholly perished in the 
 great barbarian catastrophe; if in the Renais- 
 sance there had not been foimd among the ruins 
 of the ancient world, together with beautiful 
 Greek statues and manuscripts, this great polit- 
 ical idea, there would to-day be no Republic in 
 North America. With the word would probably 
 have perished also the idea and the thing; and 
 there is no assurance that men would have been 
 able so easily and so well to rediscover it by their 
 own effort. 
 
 I am a student and not a flatterer. I there- 
 fore confess to you frankly, ending these lectures, 
 that I do not belong to that number of Europeans 
 who most enthusiastically admire things Ameri- 
 can. I think that Americans in general, in North 
 America as in South, so readily recognise in 
 
In Modern Education 263 
 
 themselves a sufficient number of virtues, that we 
 Europeans hardly need help them in the belief, 
 easy and agreeable to all, that they stand first 
 in the world. Having come from an old society, 
 which has a long historical experience, the most 
 vivid impression made upon me in the two 
 Americas has been just that of entering into a 
 society provided with but meagre historical ex- 
 perience, which therefore easily deludes itself, 
 mistaking for signs of heroic energy and proofs of 
 a finished superiority, the passing advantages 
 ___of an order chiefly economic, which come from 
 the singular_^conomic condition of the world. 
 In a word, I do not believe that you are superior 
 to Europe in as many things as you think; but 
 a superiority I do recognise, great and, for me 
 at least, indisputable, in the political institutions 
 with which you govern yourselves. TheRepubiiCj 
 which you have made to live again, here in this 
 new land, is_the true political form worthy of a 
 civilised people, because the only one that is 
 rational and plastic j while the monarchy, the 
 form of government yet ruling so many parts 
 of Europe, is a mixture of mysticism and 
 barbarity, which European interests seek in 
 vain to justify with sophistries unworthy the 
 high grade of culture to which the Continent has 
 
264 Roman History 
 
 attained. To search out the reasons why the 
 old Oriental monarchy holds on so tenaciously 
 in Europe, still threatening the future, would 
 be useless here; certain it is that, when you meet 
 any European other than a Frenchman or a 
 Swiss, you can feel yourselves as superior to 
 him in political institutions as the Roman civis 
 in the times of the Republic felt himself above 
 the Asiatic slave of absolute monarchy. This 
 superiority — ^never forget it ! — you owe to Rome ; 
 for its possession, be grateful to the city that 
 has encircled you with such glory, by infusing 
 so tenacious a life into the 
 
 "Respuhlica." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Acrobats, the great nuraber 
 of, 218 
 
 Acte, the beautiful, 114 
 
 Actium, the mistakes of 
 Antony at, 60; the peace 
 after, 216 
 
 ^gean Islands, the vine- 
 yards of the, 200 
 
 Agriculture in Gaul, the ex- 
 tent of, 84 
 
 Agrippa, the builder of the 
 Pantheon, 103; the succes- 
 sor of, 165 
 
 Agrippina, the power of, 103 ; 
 the love of the Republic 
 of, 114; miraculous escape 
 of, 120; death of, 122 
 
 Alaric, the destruction caused 
 by, 258 
 
 Alcohol, the distillers of, 26 
 
 Alesia, the city of, 91, 94; the 
 battle at, 197 
 
 Alexander the Great, men- 
 tioned, 48 
 
 Alexandria, the position of, 1 5 
 
 AUier, the valley of the, 92 
 
 Alps, the peoples beyond the, 
 20; the fear of crossing the, 
 
 73 
 Amhitio of the ancients, the, 
 
 America, the discovery of, 
 71 
 
 Amor, the kingdom of, 25 
 Amores, the, by Ovid, 151 
 Amours, the, of Antony, 41 
 Amphore, the wine of the, 
 
 39 
 Ancient Rome, corruption in, 
 
 3f 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, traits of the, 
 197 
 
 Anicetus, the diabolical plan 
 of, 119 
 
 Antony, the history of, 
 37 -ff; the love of, 40; meets 
 Cleopatra, 44; the be- 
 wilderment of, 57 
 
 Antifeminist reaction, the, 
 III 
 
 Antioch, the departure for, 
 45; the marriage at, 51 
 
 Antium, the return to, 119 
 
 Antonines, the power of the, 
 246 
 
 Aquilia, son of Julia born 
 at, 155; the trade in, 192 
 
 Arabia, part of, annexed, 49 
 
 Archaeological discoveries, the 
 effect of, 259 
 
 Archaeologists, the discover- 
 ies of, 43 
 
 Archelaus, the revolt against, 
 166 
 
 Architectural effort at Rome, 
 
 134 
 Argentine Republic, the men- 
 tion of, 86 
 
 265 
 
i266 
 
 Index 
 
 Aries, a large market for 
 
 wines, 193 
 Armenia, the revolt in, 161 
 Arras, the district of, 90 
 Arrianus, the work of, 199 
 Ars Armandi, the, by Ovid, 
 
 163 
 Artists, the numerous, of the 
 
 East, 55 
 Asia Minor, the addition to 
 
 the Empire of, 49 
 Asiatic civilisation, 17 
 Athens, the influence of, 202 
 Atrides, the legend of, 138 
 Attalus, King, 16; the be- 
 quest of, 187 
 Augustus, the age of, 25 
 Augustus Ccesar, lectures on, 
 
 3; the wise laws of, 158; 
 
 troubles of, 176; the death 
 
 of, 209 
 Avaritia, the complaint of 
 
 the, 14 
 
 B 
 
 Bacchante, a miserable, 155 
 Bacchus, the plant of, 182 
 Baetica, civilisation in, 72 
 Baiae, the Cotirt at, 119 
 Banquets, the, of ancient 
 
 Rome, 7 
 Barbarian, the struggle 
 
 against the, 34 
 Barbarism, the primitive, 
 
 254 
 Belgi, the victory over the, 
 
 77 
 Beverages, in Roman his- 
 tory, 181 ff; the growing 
 use of, 186 
 
 Birrus of Laodicea, the, 88 
 Bismarck, mentioned, 64; 
 
 compared to Caesar, 247 
 Biturigi, the, a tribe of Gaul, 
 
 86 
 Black Sea, the country 
 
 around, 182 
 Borebiste, a Gastic warrior, 
 
 191 
 Boulanger, a Roman, 41 
 Brennus, the conspirator, 130 
 Britannicus, the exclusion of, 
 
 103; the death of, 115 
 Brutus, the cult of, 243 
 Buddhist, the position of the, 
 
 236 
 Burrhus, the political work 
 
 of, 104 
 
 Caduric, a tribe of Gaul, 86 
 Caesar, Caius, adopted by 
 Augustus, 158; the po- 
 litical position of, 160 
 Caesar, Julius, the wisdom 
 
 of, 72; mistakes of, 75 
 Caesar, Lucius, adopted by 
 Augustus, 158, the popu- 
 larity of, 164 
 Caesars, the palaces of the, 7 
 Caleti, the, a tribe of Gaul, 86 
 California, grape-culture in, 
 
 187 
 Caligula, the death of, 115 
 Calumnies, the, about Julia, 
 
 174 
 Campania, the cities of, 218 
 Canals, the construction of, 
 213 
 . Capri, the monster of, 155 
 
Index 
 
 267 
 
 Carmen Seculare, the, by- 
 Horace, 151 
 Carthusian, the patience of 
 
 the, 91 
 Castles, the Roman, on the 
 
 Rhine, 192 
 Catiline, the conspiracies of, 
 
 130 
 Cato, the love of tradition of, 
 
 105; as a wine drinker, 184 
 Celt, the genius of the, 88 
 Cereals, the growth of, in 
 
 Gaul, 85 
 Cervisia, the supplications 
 
 of, 196 
 Champagne, the reputation 
 
 of, 206 
 Chian, a cask of, for a ban- 
 quet, 199 
 Christianity, the work and 
 
 spreading of, 231 ^ 
 Christians, the, in the time 
 
 of Nero, 131 
 " Christofle," the making of, 
 
 in Gaul, 91 
 Church, the position of the, 
 
 232 
 Cicero, the letters of, 74; the 
 
 influence of, 172 
 Civil wars, the impression of 
 
 the, 148 
 Civis, the Roman, 264 
 Classic renaissance, the, 235 
 Claudii, the haughty line of 
 
 the, 159 
 Claudius, Emperor, the death 
 
 of, 103 
 Cleopatra, the legend of, 
 
 37 ff; described, 40; policy, 
 
 of, 58 
 Clodia, the famous, 74 
 
 College de France, the, 3, 260 
 Columbus, mentioned, 71 
 Comitia, the election of the. 
 
 Commentaries, the, of Cassar, 
 
 191 
 Conflagration, the, of Rome, 
 
 129 
 Corday, Charlotte, 63 
 Corruption of customs, the, 3 
 Costumes of Rome, the, 181 
 Cradle of Jesus, the, 166 
 Crassus, the demagogy of, 
 
 249 
 Cultivation, in Rome, 181 
 Cultus, a Gallic term, 91 
 Cydnus, the river, 39 
 
 D 
 
 Daknatia, the malcontents 
 
 at, 166 
 Danube provinces, the, 88, 
 
 91 
 Dechelette, the great work 
 
 of, 91 
 Diamonds, the importation 
 
 of, 220 
 Diocletian, the edict of, 88 
 Dion Cassius, the historian, 
 
 63,80 
 Dionysius, the Greek judge, 
 
 183 
 Dionysos, the beverage of, 
 
 183 
 Dithyrambics, the, of Hor- 
 ace, 196 
 Drusus, mentioned, 93; the 
 
 exalted position of, 104 
 Duodecember, a fourteenth 
 
 month, 79 
 
268 
 
 Index 
 
 Duruy, the apologies of, 243 
 Dynasty of Egypt, the, 215 
 
 E 
 
 "Eastern peril," the, 50 
 Economic strength, the, of 
 
 Rome, 224 
 Economic unity, the, of the 
 
 world, 236 
 Education, the laborious, 194 
 Egnatius Mecenius, the story 
 
 of, 183 
 Egypt, the conquest of, 16, 
 
 46 . 
 Elagabalus, the splendour of, 
 
 6, 8 
 Elegies, the revolutionary, of 
 
 Ovid, 152 
 Empire, the extent of the, 
 
 217 
 Ephesus, the city of, 219 
 Euthanasia, the death of the 
 
 happy, 210 
 External policy, the, of 
 
 Rome, 164 
 
 Fabius Pictor, the word of, 
 
 183 
 Falernian, the discovery of, 
 
 198 
 
 "First Citizen of the Repub- 
 lic," the, 157 
 
 Feminism, the increase of, 
 in Rome, 108 
 
 "Festivals of Youth," the, 
 at Rome, 124 
 
 Flavians, the power of the, 
 246 
 
 Flax, the cultivation of, 85 
 
 Folies BergSres, the, men- 
 tioned, 129 
 
 Fortuna, the, of the Romans, 
 98 
 
 Forum, the impressive monu- 
 ment of the, 55 
 
 Franco-Prussian War, the, 
 202 
 
 Frankfurt, the treaty of, 202 
 
 Freedmen, the position of, 
 212 
 
 French Revolution, the, 205 
 
 Frontiers, the strengthening 
 of the, 109 
 
 Gastic warrior, the rule of a, 
 
 191 
 Gseto-Thracian, the great 
 
 empire of, 191 
 Gallia Narbonensis, the po- 
 sition of, 50 
 Gallic, afEairs, the midst of, 
 
 73 ; roads, the network of, 
 
 213 
 Gallo-Roman villas, the, 87 
 Gambetta, the love letters 
 
 of, 40 
 Gambrinus, the god, 202 
 Gaul, the development of, 
 
 20, 6g ff; conquest of, 72; 
 
 the annexation of, 77; the 
 
 wealth of, 83 
 Gauls, the irritation of the. 
 
 79; the genius of the, 81 
 Genoa, the situation of, 23 
 German historians, the work 
 
 of, 152 
 Germanicus, the historical 
 
 importance of, 103 
 
Index 
 
 269 
 
 Germany, conditions in, 79, 
 
 165; policy toward Rome, 
 
 166 
 Glass-making in Gaul, 90 
 Government, the, at Rome, 
 
 213 
 Governors, the position of 
 
 the, 212 
 Gracchi, the struggle of the, 
 
 17 
 
 Grseco-Latin civilisation, 
 the, 72,235 
 
 Grape-culture, the spread of, 
 186 
 
 Grape harvest, the abun- 
 dance of the, 185 
 
 Greatness and Decline of 
 Rome, the, 10 
 
 Greece, the contact of Rome 
 with, 185 
 
 Greek wines in Rome, 8 
 
 Gymnasium, the, at Alex- 
 andria, 55 
 
 H 
 
 Hannibal, the army of, 189 
 Harbours, the building of, 
 
 213 
 Hebrew people, the position 
 
 of the, 166 
 Hellenist, an ardent, 58 
 Helvetia, customs in, 191 
 Helvetians, the, 74; the at- 
 tack on the, 75 
 Herculaneum, the city of, 218 
 Heritage of Rome, the, 261 
 Herod the Great, the death 
 
 of, 166 
 History, as considered by 
 
 Ferrero, 65 
 Horace, the invectives of, 23 
 
 Houssaye, Henri, mentioned, 
 41 
 
 Ides, the days of the, 9 
 lerapolis, the prosperity of, 
 
 219 
 Ilium, the district of Troy, 50 
 India, the precious metals of, 
 
 30; wine exported to, 200 
 Indo-Chinese, the commerce 
 
 of the, 55 
 Inscriptions, the story left 
 
 by the, 221 
 Istrian wine, the favourite of 
 
 Livia, 199 
 
 Jerome, Saint, the story of, 
 
 78 
 Jeunesse doree, the, of Rome, 
 
 124 
 Jewelry making in Gaul, 90 
 Jewels as a luxury, 31 
 Jews in France, the, 250 
 Jove, the temple of, 19 
 Judas, the mention of, 63 
 Judea, the revolt at, 166 
 Julia, the exile of, 137; the 
 episode of, 150; discord 
 with, 154; unfaithfulness 
 of, 157; the accusation of, 
 170; the fate of, 177 
 Julian, the laws of, 151 
 Julian-Claudian house, the 
 
 power of the, 188 
 Jurisdiction of property, the, 
 
 in Gaul, 84 
 Jurists, the influence of, 230 
 Juvenal, passages from, 90 
 
270 
 
 Index 
 
 K 
 
 Kalends, the days of the, 9 
 Karbin, mentioned, 50 
 Khorsabad, the palace of , 2 5 9 
 Knights, the social position 
 of the, 212 
 
 Ladies, the, of Rome, 30 
 Langres, the district of, 90 
 Laodicea, the birrus of, 88; 
 
 the city of, 219 
 Lares, the veneration of the, 
 
 190 
 Latin morals, the severity of, 
 
 61 
 Latin spirit, the similarity of 
 
 the, 256 
 Laws of Julian, the, 151 
 Legislative reforms, the, 21 
 Leibach, the trade through, 
 
 192 
 Lepidus mentioned, 172 
 Letronne, the researches of, 
 
 45 
 Lex de adulter its, the, 148 
 Lex de maritandis ordinibus, 
 
 the, 147 
 Lex Julia de adulteriis, the, 
 
 169 
 Lex sumptuaria, the, 148 
 Libertine poet, a, in the 
 
 year 8 B.C., 151 
 Licinius, the characteristics 
 
 of, 79 
 Linen, the manufacture of, 
 
 219 
 Litterati, the many, 218 
 Livia, the mother of Tiberius, 
 
 162; the position of, 168 
 
 Livia, the House of, 7 
 Livy, the point of view of, 3 
 LoUia Paulina, the fame of, 9 
 Lucullus, the rising power 
 of, 18; wine used by, 184 
 Lusitania, a mission to, 117 
 Luxuria, the desire of, 14 
 Luxury, of Rome, 125; 
 spread of, 186 
 
 M 
 
 Macrobius, the writings of, 
 
 Mamertine, a kind of wine, 
 
 199 
 Mania, the all absorbing, of 
 
 Nero, 128 
 Marcellus, the privileges ac- 
 corded, 160 
 Marius, the revolution of, 18 
 Martial, passages from, 90 
 "Mass," the so-called, 182 
 Mater familias, the honour 
 
 of, 39 
 Maurel, Andr6, the writings 
 
 of, 251 
 Mazzini, the great, 63 
 Mediterranean world, the 
 
 vast, 97 
 Merchandise, the great in- 
 terchange of, 218 
 Mesia, the metropolis of, 219 
 Messalina, the death of, 103 
 Middle Ages, the cathedrals 
 
 of the, 140 
 Military power, the weak- 
 ening of the, at Rome, 167 
 Military Republic, the, 136 
 Military triumph, the, of 
 Rome, 197 
 
Index 
 
 271 
 
 Minos, the historic, 63 
 Mirabeau, the love letters 
 
 of, 40 
 Mithri dates, defeat of, 19; 
 
 the conquests of, 197 
 Mohammedan, the position 
 
 of the, 236 
 Mommsen, the apologies of, 
 
 243 
 Morales, the two, at Rome, 
 
 iSS 
 Morini, the, a tribe in Gaul, 
 
 86 
 Mo sea olearia, a new species 
 
 of, 190 
 Municipia, the splendour of 
 
 the, no 
 Museum, the, at Alexandria, 
 
 55 
 Mythology, the imagination 
 
 of, 197 
 
 N 
 
 Naiads, the maidens of Cleo- 
 patra dressed as, 40 
 
 Naples, the ruins of, 92 ; the 
 city of, 218 
 
 Naples, the Gulf of, 119 
 
 Napoleon I., mentioned, 63, 
 210 
 
 Natural History, the, by 
 Pliny, 183 
 
 Nero, Emperor, 96, elected, 
 103; frivolity of, 105; de- 
 bauches of, 114; the cow- 
 ardice of, 121; careless 
 government of, 125; St. 
 Paul contrasted with, 133; 
 the suicide of, 135 
 
 Newspapers, the fortunate 
 lack of, in Rome, 173 
 
 Nile, the Roman protector- 
 ate in the valley of the, 46 
 Nimes, the inhabitants of, 
 
 175 
 Nones, the days of the, 9 
 Notre Dame, the cathedral 
 
 of, 140 
 Nuptial banquets, the cost 
 
 of, 9 
 
 O 
 
 Octavia, divorce of, 40; the 
 
 wife of Nero, 124, 127 
 Oil, the exportation of, 218 
 Oligarchy, the, at Rome, 81 
 Olive groves, the wealth of 
 
 the, 189 
 Olympus, the delights of, 59 
 Opimius, the consulate of, 
 
 198 
 Orient, the metropolises of 
 
 the, 15 
 Oriental Empire, the, of 
 
 Rome, 57 
 Oriental state, the conquest 
 
 of an, 15 
 Orientalism, the invasion of, 
 
 225 
 Ostia, Tiberius starts for, 163 
 Ovid, the representatives of, 
 
 149; the work of, 150 
 
 Paintings, -of Pompeii, the, 
 
 229 
 Palatine, a journey to the, 7 ; 
 
 polygamy in, 118 
 Palestine, the annexation of, 
 
 49; uprising in, 166 
 Pandalaria, Julia exiled to, 
 
 172, 177 
 
272 
 
 Index 
 
 Pannonia, the malcontents 
 at, 166 
 
 Pannonians, the customs of 
 the, 193 
 
 Pantheon, the, mentioned, 
 103 
 
 Parthians, the Empire of the, 
 167 
 
 Possum, as a drink, 183 
 
 Pater familias, the power of 
 the, 172 
 
 Paul of Tarsus, a great and 
 simple man, 131; the per- 
 secution of, 134 
 
 Pax Romana, the, 4; the ex- 
 tent of the, 210 
 
 Pearls, the Importation of, 
 30, 220 
 
 Penetralia, the, of the home, 
 
 32 
 Pergamon, the city, 219 
 Pergamus, the kingdom of, 
 
 16, 187 
 Periplus of the Erytrian Sea, 
 
 the, a manual, 199 
 Persia, the conquest of, 44 
 Philosophers, the many, 209 
 Philosophy, the ancient, of 
 
 Rome, 233 
 Phylloxera, a new species of, 
 
 190 
 Piedmont, the peasants of, 
 
 187 
 Pinon, the imperialist, 251 
 Pisa, inscriptions at, 164 
 Piso, the conspiracy of, 135 
 Plutarch, description of, 39 
 Po, the valley of the, 192 
 Poetry, the, of Horace, 195 
 Poets, the position of, 9 B.C., 
 
 146 
 
 Political barrier, the, between 
 
 Gaul and Rome, 84 
 Political events, the, of 
 
 Rome, 33 
 Political personnel, the, of 
 
 Rome, 217 
 Polybius, the period of, 183 
 Pompadour, the Marquise 
 
 de, mentioned, 43 
 Pompeii, the ruins of, 92 ; the 
 
 city of, 218 
 Pompey, the conquests of, 
 
 19; the theatre of, 55 
 Pontifex maximus, the title 
 
 of, 232 
 Pontus, salted fish from the, 
 
 8 
 Pappsea Sabina, the skill of, 
 
 116; death of, 137 
 Populus, the representatives 
 
 of the, 246 
 Pozzuoli, the city of, 218 
 Praetor, the office of the, 157 
 Precious metals, the distri- 
 bution of, 218 
 Praetorian guards, the, 117 
 Praetorians, the influence of 
 
 the, 104 
 Princeps, the authority of 
 
 the, 188 
 Proconsuls, the, of Rome, 
 
 182 
 Procurator, the origin of the 
 
 office of, 212 
 Propraetors, the government 
 
 of the, 211 
 Prosperity, the growing, 148 
 Protestant, the present posi- 
 tion of the, 236 
 Provinces, the peace in the, 
 
 176 
 
Index 
 
 273 
 
 Ptolemies, the, at Alexandria, 
 
 Ptolemies, the kingdom of 
 
 the, 46 
 Public finance, the lack of, 
 
 144 
 Pimic War, the Second, 3,214 
 
 Quaestor, the office of the, 
 211 
 
 Quintilius Varus, the gover- 
 nor of Syria, 166 
 
 Quintus MetuUus Celerus, 
 the consul, 74 
 
 R 
 
 Reinach, Joseph, the his- 
 torian, 63 
 
 Republic, the last century 
 of the, 14, 198 
 
 Respublica, the glory of the, 
 264 
 
 Revue de Paris, the, 63 
 
 Rheims, the vicinity of the 
 city of, 206 
 
 Rhetian wine, the preference 
 for, 199 
 
 Rhine, the river, 72 
 
 Roads, the construction of, 
 213 
 
 Rodi, Tiberius to go to, 162 
 
 Roman Catholic, the posi- 
 tion of the, 236 
 
 Roman Empire, the dissolu- 
 tion of the, 140, 210 
 
 Roman history in modern 
 education, 239 
 
 Roman nobility, the, 54 
 
 Roman protectorate, the, 46 
 
 Roman society, the dissolu- 
 tion of, 5 
 Romanism, the defence of, 
 
 III 
 Rome, in the beginning, 5 
 Romulus as a lawmaker, 183 
 Royal palaces, the closing of, 
 
 215 
 Ruteni, the, a tribe of Gaul, 
 86 
 
 Saint Mark, the wonder of, 
 
 140 
 Saintonge, the district of, 90 
 Savants, the, of the East, 55 
 Scipio Africanus, the work 
 
 of. 153 
 Scipios, the policy of the, 226 
 Second Punic War, the, 3, 214 
 Seine, the banks of the, 206 
 Sempronius Gracchus, a fa- 
 mous tribune, 56 
 Senate, the Roman, 103; 
 
 sessions of the, 105 
 Seneca, the political work 
 
 of, 104 
 Sesterces, the value of the 
 
 Roman, 223 
 Sicily, the peasants of, 187 
 Sidon, the artisans of, 88; 
 
 the city of, 219 
 Silk, the importation of, 220 
 Silver-plating, the art of, 228 
 Slaves, the abundance of, in 
 
 Rome, 15 
 Slaves, the position of, 212 
 Social development, the, of 
 
 the Roman Empire, zoj jf 
 Social laws, the, 148, 153 
 
274 
 
 Index 
 
 Socialists, the invectives of 
 
 the, 250 
 Soldi, the hunt for, 173 
 Spain, the pro-consulship of, 
 
 184 
 Spartacus, the days of, 189 
 Stadium, the erection of the, 
 
 at Rome, 125 
 State, the supervision of the, 
 
 24 
 Statues, the erection of, 152 
 Strabo, observations of, 85 
 Strenua inertia, the, 29 
 Suetonius, the ancient writer, 
 
 127 
 Sulla, the revolution of, 18 
 Sulmona, the birth of Ovid 
 
 at, 149 
 Summer homes, the, at Na- 
 ples, 120 
 Syria, the annexation of, 73 ; 
 
 the conquest of, 16 
 
 Tacitus, the opinion of, 30, 
 
 152 
 Tarsus, Cleopatra at, 39 
 Terpnos, a zither-player, 105 
 Textile plants, in Gaul, 85 
 Theatres, the great demand 
 
 for, no 
 Theresa, Maria, mentioned, 
 
 43 
 Thracian slave, the escape of 
 
 a, 189 
 Tiber, the banks of the, 
 
 203 
 Tiberius, a great general, 
 
 7, 30, 93. 109, 145; the 
 life of, 153; difficulties of, 
 
 157; suggested retirement 
 
 of, 162 
 Traditions, aristocratic, 153 
 Tributes, the, imposed on the 
 
 vanquished, 15; collection 
 
 of, 212 
 Triumvir, the fall of the 
 
 great, in 
 Troy, the ancient city of, 50 
 Tunis, grape-culture at, 187 
 Tyranny, the, at Rome, 135 
 Tyre, the prosperity of, 88, 
 
 219 
 Tyrian purple, the, 89 
 
 U 
 
 Undecember, a thirteenth 
 
 month, 79 
 Urbs, the meaning of, 249 
 Usury, the pitiless, 186 
 
 V 
 
 Vladivostok, mentioned, 50 
 Villa, the luxury of a Roman, 
 
 194 
 Valtellina, the valley of the, 
 
 199 
 Varus, the catastrophe of, 
 
 166 
 Vatican field, the stadium in 
 
 the, 124 
 Velleius, the report of, 93 
 Veneto, the peasants of the, 
 
 187 
 Venosa, an old poet from, 195 
 Venus, Cleopatra compared 
 
 to, 39 
 Vices, the extent of, 27 
 Villas, the, of Gaul, 99 
 Vine-tenders, the, of Rome, 
 
 182 
 
Index 
 
 275 
 
 Vineyards, the destruction 
 
 of the, 190 
 Virgil, the fame of, 23 
 Viticulture, the, of Italy, 196 
 
 W 
 
 Wine, in Roman history, 179 
 if; an inferior variety made 
 in Italy, 182; as a medi- 
 cine, 183 
 
 Wine-dealers, the, of Rome, 
 182 
 
 Women of to-day and yester- 
 day, 29 
 
 Wool industry, the, of Gaul, 
 90 
 
 Xerxes, the fame of, 63 
 
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